Introduction: post mTBI severe photosensitivity to blue LED

jordan getting their special color filtered glasses stopped the sensitivity to glare, photophobia, and even some led sensitivity. Unfortunately didn't fix the screen issue for me

Really interesting experience with Irlen lenses:

They actually work on my M1 MacBook Air.

Prior to this, on other laptops like my otherwise perfectly usable 2012 Lenovo Yoga 13" (which I entirely disabled dithering on) or 2015 12" MacBook, putting my Irlen lenses on simply adds way more glare to those screens and makes me feel nausea, I have to take my lenses off when using those laptops because otherwise they suddenly start feeling unusable to me.

In addition, my lenses also don't work on my 2015 15" rMBP (AMD) which already is unusable and has really bad dithering, putting them on doesn't improve anything and makes me feel even worse looking at that computer, my Irlen lenses add an extreme amount of glare.

HOWEVER…

I'm having an ENTIRELY different experience wearing my Irlen lenses (color filter only, no perscription) while using my M1 MacBook Air + Stillcolor.

Unlike the other laptops, I do not feel ANY additional glare. My eyes are not twitching more when I have them on, in fact the movement of my eyes feels more stable. The lenses are actually WORKING and helping reduce strain even further. I feel like I can type way more without the screen going "double vision", and colors feel more relaxing.

I have no idea what makes the panel in this laptop respond entirely differently from other PC and Mac laptops but it feels like my Irlen lenses are actually "compatible" with my M1 Air.

Since my experience was already pretty good on my M1 Air's panel with the Stillcolor app, this makes it even better and I'm finally able to take advantage of the depth perception and expanded field of vision benefits I get while wearing Irlen lenses WHILE using my laptop.

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As a side note, prior to this discovery, the only screens that were "compatible" with Irlen lenses for me were (surprisingly) OLED iPhones. Putting the info out there that Irlen lenses actually help a LOT with OLED, totally makes my iPhone 14 Pro look different, backgrounds look much less "noisy", and I get WAY less dizzy while using OLED if I have my lenses on.

I am pretty sure Irlen lenses work on OLED displays because they reduce PWM sensitivity, as they also consistently make rooms with flickering LED and flourescent lighting much more tolerable.

(Funnily enough, this means using my OLED iPhone with Irlen lenses — at least on iOS 16.4.1, LOL — is actually WAY more comfortable to me than using my terribly temporally dithered LCD iPhone SE 2 on iOS 17.2.1 no matter if my lenses are currently on or off. Although I have a much worse time using OLED without my lenses on though.)

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However, this M1 MacBook Air is the first traditional LCD I've used that actually feels BETTER when I'm wearing Irlen lenses instead of introducing additional symptoms, which has totally surprised me. Feels so amazing to finally be able to simply keep my lenses on after opening my laptop.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs wow that's amazing I'm glad to hear the benefits on those devices! The glasses are designed to "calm" the brain and stops visual stress. My irlens diagnostician said that everyone is different so after using them for awhile it can help heal the brain from any past trauma (concussion for example) so you could get to a point where those added benefits are still there without the glasses after wearing them for awhile.. If not then you'll just only have them when wearing the glasses which is fine. I do also want to add that these glasses work with flourescent and led sensitivitys. I cannot walk into Costco without them lol. I think these could help a lot of people here!

Edit: what colors did you end up with on the lenses? You could always go back for further improvements by adding more colors too

jordan I do also want to add that these glasses work with flourescent and led sensitivitys.

Yup this is what they're most useful for for me, get a LOT less tired in buildings with flickering lightbulbs as long as I have them on.

I also have a second pair of lenses with a distance perscription and those are game-changing for non-indoors use in sunlight. The outdoors looks absolutely beautiful and more vivid then I've seen in YEARS — they entirely makes the outdoors feel like the 2000s again.

jordan you could get to a point where those added benefits are still there without the glasses after wearing them for awhile

Yep my depth perception has been getting better in general.

jordan Edit: what colors did you end up with on the lenses? You could always go back for further improvements by adding more colors too

Greenish yellow with 2 layers, not sure the exact values. However, trying to add an extra layer seemed to add too much glare.

jordan BTW, one of the things that made my Irlen lenses feel even better — especially my distance ones but it improved both — was adjusting my glasses to be positioned higher up (which allows buildings/etc. that are really up high to be in my default field of vision looking straight instead of needing to look up). I did this by adding thicker soft nose pad covers on top of the existing metal nose pads and twisting them both in a way that slightly pushes up the glasses and pushes them a bit further away from my face too.

Now I can have my head completely straight while walking, I feel like I don't have to look all over the place as much, and it seems to align my vision in a way where I can see details in the real world that I swear the last time I remember being able to see was over 10 years ago.

For example, after adjusting them up I have started to see "extremely intense patterns of information-dense and repeating information" in the real world as well such as "multiple street lights/windows/holes/tiles all in focus the same time" which is SUCH a great feeling. (This feels very similar to the level of information density I can also percieve on "good screens" after temporal dithering is turned off etc.)

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs
That's actually something I noticed too! It almost seems without them I have to scan my eyes around to see/find something. When I would wear them I can just notice things right away and it seemed to improve my memory tbh. I'll have to go back and get my colors updated! I think my best pair was the aqua blue only pair. I think frames with bigger lenses could be wonderful. So for your up close/computer pair it's just the color filter without corrections right ?

Btw they do offer filtering for hard contacts too btw.

Edit: also to those reading these messages, everyone is different so even though blue is good for me and the other color is good for him.. you might still benefit from another color like pink or rose colored for example, never know until you get screened.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I tried a few lenses at the optician, as well as some sunglasses, and yellow makes natural whites insanely intense for me. Probably because they activate both types of receptors. With yellow lenses I get the same feel like I do when I've pushed things far enough for all visual symptoms to appear, where for example looking at white snow is extremely painful and the whiteness seems out of this world. Didn't experiment much with colored glasses and screens tho. Just remember that I used contacts with a slight green tint (Acuvue Oasys Max) before things went to shit as well.

I've seen some reports that there are differences in polarization on the different RGB pixels on some screens, so you could try experimenting with some polarized lens and rotating them to see if that brings some clarity into what the difference is. And spectrometer would be interesting, but those are horribly expensive.

And as far as I can understand, do remember that RGB screens can't for example output the wavelength for yellow, as it will simply trick our brain by blasting combinations that are interpreted as yellow. Apart from the backlight where there a wider spectrum, but probably super heavy in blue.

So with a natural yellow you would have a wavelength that by itself activates both types of receptors, while with the machine one you would have two wavelengths that are imitating yellow.

Also these glasses doesn't change the wavelengths in any way, and simply blocks specific ones. I would guess that a pure blue (yellow blocking) would block natural yellow, but that the one from a computer screen would pass right thru.

Took some quick pics to compare how polarization affects M1 max vs Mateview 28".

async yellow makes natural whites insanely intense for me

yellow of normal color tinted lenses is very different from irlen yellow which very precisely filters light spectrum and there's like 9 different variations of irlen yellow my specialist had me try that honestly all of them made me feel entirely different from the next lol

also irlen greenish+yellow on mine is not strong yellow it all, it kinda looks like night shift was turned on halfway and then a slight green is added to it perceptually

in the past i had more "standard" color tinted blue light blocking on my prescription glasses that actually looked very perceptually similar, but it didn't have any of the really really noticeable depth processing, movement coordination, and flicker sensitivity reduction benefits of my irlen custom tinted lenses

total difference in how they are made and what they're actually doing with light vs. just regular color tints that probably distort light spectrum in a much less consistent way

with standard blue blocking lenses i never felt much of a difference from regular vision other than "some colors look more vivid" and "things are a bit more relaxing"

with very perceptually similar irlen lenses — even coming from the standpoint of honestly not really believing the hype at first — the moment i went outside with my specialist halfway through the selection process it was an absolute "oh my god i have not seen the world look quite this way in 15 years i didn't know things are supposed to look this 3D and this large all in my field of vision at once" moment

i really didn't believe at first that this would even be possible through purely a "really well calibrated color filter", but somehow it is and i was seeing the proof firsthand right in front of me

finally, only irlen custom tinted lenses have actually significantly affected the feel and improved the comfort of OLED iPhones for me, no other glasses or color filters have ever done that for me

by the way, irlen custom tinted lenses >>>>>>>>> neurolens. irlen is so much better, source: tried both

don't expect screen improvements with them though aside from OLED phones (because they really help with PWM sensitivity, they actually make my iPhone 14 Pro usable) and really surprisingly the M1 MacBook Air that actually does improve while wearing irlen lenses

a lot of the benefits are more for rooms with flickering lightbulbs, HUGE improvement in depth perception in the real world, staying coordinated in large crowds, outdoors looks and feels awesome, bright sunlight isn't tiring anymore even though sunlight still appears "perceptually" just as bright with them on —

not so much laptop screens and monitors though. if a screen dithers it will still suck with irlen lenses. if a screen PWMs it can be improved, but might have significantly more glare which can sometimes end up being worse than whatever it improves

but, i still have no idea why, the one screen it DOES improve is the M1 MacBook Air, i don't feel ANY additional glare and it's more comfortable with my lenses on (on the other hand, no other Mac or Windows laptop i own is improved with irlen lenses for me, even others with succesfuly disabled dithering)