Treatments, desensitization, pills, exercises - solutions
If anti depression drugs are helping, maybe the condition is "Nervous asthenopia"
Nervous asthenopia: due to functional or organic nervous disease, commonly seen in anxiety
https://eyewiki.aao.org/Asthenopia
I went to see a neurologist who specializes in headaches. In January, I began to take Nortriptyline (a very old antidepressant). I started at 10 mg nightly and every two weeks added 10 mg. By the time I hit 40 mg, my headaches, tinnitus and nausea were gone.
Note that 40 mg is a typical dose for migraines but a very low dose for depression (typical starting dose for depression is 75-100mg).
Unfortunately, I started having other side effects of the medicine (extremely tired during the day, sadness, unmotivated, heart palpitations, and feeling dizzy when standing), so I discontinued it.
I'm going to see a neurologist again next week to try a different medication. There are tons of anti-migraine medicines out there. I guess my advice would be to visit a neurologist who specializes in headaches and give something a try. I'm definitely kicking myself for not doing this earlier.
GregAtkinson Have you tried Rinexin or similar medicine? It helped me a lot with my eyes.
mike I have not tried it. I'm in the US and it appears that Rinexin is not available here.
GregAtkinson If you have the possibility to try something similar for a week or two, perhaps it works for you too.
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GregAtkinson Thanks for the update! Good to hear from you again. I've heard good things about this virtual headache center -- but I've never tried them and have no personal experience to offer. Unfortunately with awful LED lights going everywhere in public I might have to see someone like that.
Again just from my research, no personal experience, you might want to look into:
- Supplements (Vitamin B2, Magnesium)
- GammaCore
- Cefaly
- CGRP medications
Clokwork How are you doing now? I'm on 10 mg escitalopram for the past 15 years or so (was having random panic attacks). Recently tried to upgrade a laptop/monitor/camera etc. and realized that I'm affected by almost all new screens and monitors. It's sent my anxiety through the roof. I was actually thinking of trying to maybe getting off Lexapro since it does seem to have a ocular/vision effect component to it. I don't recall any vision changes when I first started taking it but maybe the triggers in technology just weren't there. So figured maybe being off it would help.
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It's been roughly 8 weeks since I went off Nortriptyline and I can say with certainty that my headaches are worse now than they were when I was on Nortriptyline (same with Paxil and Prozac).
For instance, I have a large ViewSonic monitor that I could use just fine on Nortriptyline but now I get headaches within 10 minutes of using it. I'm back to my old standby monitors (I have one old Acer and one old Asus that are 10+ years old).
I got a prescription for venlafaxine (Effexor). I'll give that a shot, but I have some serious catching up to do in my life, so I need to make sure my motivation issues are figured out before I start another antidepressant. I'll send an update in November.
ryans suggested a couple supplements/vitamins, so I went crazy and decided to try these four:
- Feverfew 380 mg
- Riboflaven (Vitamin B2) 400 mg (will turn your urine bright neon yellow, FYI)
- Magnesium 500 mg
- CoQ10 100 mg
I'm skeptical, but hey, if there's a 1% chance it'll work I'm willing to give it a shot. Anybody else had any luck with vitamins or supplements?
I started all four at the same time and had side effects, so now I'm trying them one at a time. Here's my results so far:
Feverfew: gave me rebound headaches (20-ish hours after taking it, I'd get terrible headaches). I discontinued it.
Magnesium: may possibly have reduced (but definitely not eliminated) my headaches, but it also gave me diarrhea. I discontinued it.
I'll give an update on the other two later.
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Magnesium: may possibly have reduced (but definitely not eliminated) my headaches, but it also gave me diarrhea. I discontinued it
It suggest it did helped you to an extend, but the question is which type of magnesium did you take. The are a few main types. Some has caused diarrhea. Only one did not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/migraine/comments/brq1r7/magnesium_daily_dose_and_diarrhea/?rdt=61776
And you're taking the dosage too high. 250mg is the sweet dosage.
Tobiyas Thanks for the heads up. I did some research and it all seems clear as mud.
I was taking Magnesium Oxide, which can cause diarrhea. I'm going to experiment with various combinations of these two:
Magnesium Threonate (maybe take in the morning)
Magnesium Glycinate (maybe take at night)
I have tried magnesium in the past. Zero relief whatsoever.
Most neurologists will go through the routine of prescribing the normal panel of anti migraine medications (propranolol, Nortryptalin, etc) but they will not work. Those operate on entirely different pathways in the brain. But when a nuero hears the word "migraine" they just go back to protocol and walk you down the standard med path
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I am working at a startup in San Francisco that builds eye strain free computer tablet. (I also have severe computer vision syndrome) Perhaps the tablet could be part of the solutions and improvement.
We are interested in having 10-20 enthusiastic users to receive our tablets for 2 weeks or longer, and share their experiences with us. It will also help us understand what type of eye conditions does the tablet help with the most, and helped us discover our super fans and any software bugs! It is free to be a tester.
if interested, you can email me at: tiffany@jangleinc.com
Thank you! ^^
I've been on the Magnesium Glycinate 200 mg for about a week. So far, no reduction in headaches, though some sites say it can take weeks or months to notice a difference.
On the bright side, I'm sleeping much better. (Some studies indicate that magnesium helps with sleep.) And I don't have the diarrhea issues that the other magnesium pills caused.
I'll keep experimenting with the magnesium, CoQ10 and Riboflavin and post when I have an update.
Has anyone tried CGRP inhibitors? I am tempted to give it a try but from what I read online it costs 700 euro per injection in Italy, so very expensive.
Lauda89 why take risk with your health. If you need to use a computer for your work, just buy an old one (for example pre 2015 macbook) they were PWM free, and disable dithering via terminal or SwitchResX. Or if you prefer Windows use Ditherig.exe.
I know its hard to avoid computer screens nowadays, but limiting screen time is ofcourse the best solution.
Hunter20 I am already taking a medication (fluxarten) which is a vasodilator. Without this medication I would be disocupied for a year.
In many companies it is not possible to use such old PCs without OS upgrades.
But even solving the job problem, I am still tired of having problems with phones (I am still stuck with iphone X IOS14), tablet tv etc.. I want to get back to having a normal life and these CGRP inhibitors look very promising.