• Progress

  • Update: Patching still working for me

Tl;DR patching is still working for me so I am leaving it at that

In the past several months I've tried a few other monitors, a projectors, a few different video cards, drivers, settings changes, and none of them made any real difference. I did another round of vision therapy (at $3000 out of pocket) hawked by a "BVD Specialist" who promised they could help me and the therapy did nothing but make my bank account lighter

The only thing that has ever really worked long term has been the eye patch, so I am pretty much going to abandon any more avenues of treatment or investigation and just use that. I can work for several hours staring at the screen with the eye patch and suffer practically no effects, and have been doing so for over a year now. I still average about 3 "problem days" a months where the eye patch is less effective, but that is manageable. If the eye patch ever fails I will jump back into the fray, but for now I am accepting this is the fix until I retire and no longer need to worry about it.

I d not feel that any hardware can solve my BVD, as the software (Windows 10) can make the hardware operate in a way that triggers my BVD symptoms. Knocking out my binocular vision with the patch is the only thing that has worked. I do what I can to limit my screen time but I would say I am still averaging 4-6 hours a days with most days pain free or minimal discomfort. This has allowed me to keep my career and earn a living supporting my family. All from a $1.25 paper eye patch (I find the cheaper paper ones hold their shape better and don't hit your eyelashes, which I find annoying)

So if you haven't tried it yet, give it a shot, other than the endless pirate jokes from my kids, it's not that obtrusive a thing to live with, and the benefits certainly outweigh the downsides.

    Thanks for the update @ensete. Glad patching is still working. I know you were afraid about your career. I go through this sh*t now.

    ensete I did another round of vision therapy (at $3000 out of pocket)

    Did they give you a specific diagnosis?

    ensete I've tried a few other monitors,

    Any chance this was a monitor >144HZ refresh rate?

    ensete as the software (Windows 10)

    Windows 11 is being rapidly pushed out. I'm too chicken to try it. Did you try it?

    Other things I've heard about is Avulux glasses and Photosyntonics that might help.

    Also, any progress made with MS Engineer?

            ensete have you tried patching your other eye to see if this could bring about permanent changes after a training period? As in less eyestrain without a patch? Experience could be different as an effect of eye dominance.

            Also I recently switched from patch my eye to cover the visual field encompassing the monitor by covering my glasses with a piece of paper. Worked equally well in avoiding eye strain, perhaps trains the brain in another way and I can tolerate it better not having my eye muscles keep my eyes shut.

            Have you been prescribes prism glasses by your BVD specialist?

                ryans Did they give you a specific diagnosis?

                Of course, they said I was deficient this and superior that, and divergent this and convergent that, and please make sure to sign and date the check before we go any further. I'm pretty convinced the entire field is a scam.

                Any chance this was a monitor >144HZ refresh rate?

                I tried 144hz, 240hz, and 360Hz. Bupkiss for all of them. Refresh rate (at least for me) has nothing to do with my BVD.

                I did notice going to a lower FPS on some devices (down to 24 vs 60) was better, but still ultimately unusable

                Windows 11 is being rapidly pushed out. I'm too chicken to try it. Did you try it?

                I tried it in a VM, Win 11 is just as bad as Win 10. The software responsible for the issue (DirectX 12) is in both and they render the same. I am using Windows 7 and will continue to do so. There is a pretty large community of old OS users out there and plenty of Youtube videos on how to run them in modern day (XP especially)

                I did briefly try an OS called Tiny10 which is a customized mega stripped down version of Windows 10 that does seem better, maybe that display part of the OS was removed, but I didn't spend a lot of time with it.

                Also, any progress made with MS Engineer?

                Nope, we have identified a hotfix that contains the offending code somewhere, but they told me there wasn't any use digging into exactly what it is since it couldn't be removed from Windows 10 anyway so there's no point. MS seems to be just like every other employer or company out there that crows about how much they care about "accessibility" and "helping people with disabilities", they will get all exited to help, and as soon as the 3-4 "default" things they expect to work fail and they see it's going to take actual hard work and experimentation to figure out what is going on, they toss their "empathy and concern" out the window and walk away. Same experience with Google and Apple. All their marketing about how much they care about inclusion is total BS. They only care as long as they don't have to make any effort

                    karut have you tried patching your other eye to see if this could bring about permanent changes after a training period? As in less eyestrain without a patch? Experience could be different as an effect of eye dominance.

                    Patching my left eye offers zero relief. Only the right eye patching works

                    Also I recently switched from patch my eye to cover the visual field encompassing the monitor by covering my glasses with a piece of paper. Worked equally well in avoiding eye strain,

                    An eye patch and a piece of paper covering your eye seems like the same thing to me?

                    Have you been prescribes prism glasses by your BVD specialist?

                    Yes. They didn't work as well as the eye patch, caused a different eyestrain, and were orders of magnitude more expensive than an eye patch. That was another $100 down the tubes for a pair of glasses I now have gathering dust in my drawer. The cost of that one pair of prism glasses would have covered a lifetime of eye patches with change left over. I only need to go 13 more years and then I retire and put all this behind me. Given my experience I can get a year or so per eyepatch, so I only need 10-15 of them. So any supposed "cure" that costs more than $20 isn't worth it.

                      ensete we have identified a hotfix that contains the offending code somewhere,

                      Would be cool if you are willing to share it here..it might be useful for research purposes.

                      FWIW Microsoft Office and the like has some great browser functionality. Maybe you could use Xubuntu or something with a modern browser.

                          An eye patch and a piece of paper covering your eye seems like the same thing to me?

                          Let me specify: patching my eye in as completely covering the eye and directly on top the lid, closing the eye as a result. I switched to an occluder for more comfort like in the image below but a little smaller so more of non-screen area of the visual field can get in (https://stock.adobe.com/at/images/child-in-glases-with-green-occluder-ortopad-boys-eye-patces-nozzle-for-glasses-for-treating-strabismus-lazy-eye-nine-years-old-boy-with-one-eye-covered-by-eye-pad-and-with-eye-glasses/212657587)

                          So the covered eye still processes some visual information not shutting down completely. Perhaps this can act more like visual training than completely taking the eye out of the equation. Just an intuition as someone with a bit of background in neuroscience.

                            karut
                            When I patch I do not close my eye, it is open behind the patch

                              Messages like this make me happy and force me to believe that I can reach such results as you. 3 days ago a had started patching again, and today was kind of my record(i have been working with a "harmful" screen with a patch of about 6 hours(with a few gaps). For sure, right now it is not absolutely comfortable for me(i have a small eyes strain and headaches), but I try to do my best, and I think regular pieces of training would help me to win.

                              By the way, it is very interesting - do you have any improvements when you try to look at a screen without patching? I mean, many guys, after some time training with patching be able to look at a screen without a patch. Did you see any improvements like they did?

                              Anyway, if I would be able to use all laptops and monitor even with "one eye pirate" I was happy.

                                23 days later

                                arturpanteleev By the way, it is very interesting - do you have any improvements when you try to look at a screen without patching? I mean, many guys, after some time training with patching be able to look at a screen without a patch. Did you see any improvements like they did?

                                Minimal. I can look at the screen unpatched for maybe 3-4 seconds and not get triggered

                                  dev