Treatments, desensitization, pills, exercises - solutions
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JTL I would describe your problem as best as possible and mention that there was already a case (before me) where one person solved it by exercising for convergence insufficiency. He should test for vergence in general (there is convergence insufficiency, excess, and divergence insufficiency and excess, theyre not interchangeable, all are from different muscle tensions). He should also test for accomodation, how fast you are able to reaccomodate when looking far and near etc., mine was measuring with stopwatch and also distance with a meter.
The glasses I have now dont allow me to converge properly for distance, so when I try that, my eyes start hurting similarly as when looking at a problematic display. I have different problem with distance and with near. So eventually the glasses will have to be for distance on top and near on bottom. And who knows what the exercises will do, so they might need to be redone. Its not a complete solution yet, but the difference to my previous state is so singnificant, that its the most progress Ive made in the last three years and a definite connection.
If you cant find anyone, find articles online about those four issues of vergence and try to write people who wrote them to recommend you somewhere. I ran into ophtalmologists saying this is bullshit, i ran into an optometrist for kids who had no clue. Dont get discouraged. My neurologist has no idea a discipline like optometry even exists and shes on the board of national headache association... My migraine doctor had no clue what the writing from the report means, and he was a GOOD doctor who tested for acupressure points and everything else and treated several migraine patients in the past. He found some spots and trigger points that I will eventually try to solve too, if this doesnt work completely.
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JTL Btw, you said the cannabis treatment helped you. How do you then now distinguish between the bad and good displays?
Also if vergence is your issue, or nystagmus as you mentioned (could be both), it could be the weed relaxes those muscles similarly as proper crafted glasses could. Im not sure if its connected, but once Ive done some pretty strong psychedelics and Ive seem similar distortion in image as I see with the new glasses (they tend to make straight shapes seem angular spatially, as in a display seems to have a concave, but when you get used to it, it has opposite concave when I take them off
) Might be unrelated though.
I have another theory and that is that due to different ability of each eye to focus and converge, PWM might cause issues because subconsciously, your eyes see the dark and white alernating differently, and the alteration is more annoying. About 5% of people are supposed to have hidden vergence issues. Accomodation could play role here too, as others peoples eyes reaccomodate for each flicker of the PWM. However I wonder whether that wears the eyes out or not eventually in the long term, and is therefore harmful for health and should be fucking taken care of and responsibility taken already. This issue taught me to take hours off displays every day, sit in the park, read books again, and Ive realized most people really are phone zombies.
Oh, and be careful of saying "I read on the internet...", very few doctors are open minded enough to listen to you after you start with this opening sentence Say you know someone but he lives in another part of the world.
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martin Btw, you said the cannabis treatment helped you. How do you then now distinguish between the bad and good displays?
I'm still "recovering" and building up strength a year and a half in, but before I started (so late 2016) even using Plasma TV's and my Macbook were painful, let alone trying to be in a building with flickering lights. Even for bad devices (I tried my friends iPhone X which is OLED) I have a better tolerance of about 5-15 minutes before I feel crappy. Before it was just seconds.
martin Also if [convergence] is your issue, or nystagmus as you mentioned (could be both),
I've always had nystagmus since I was born, but this issue only started in September 2011 so who knows.
martin I have another theory and that is that due to different ability of each eye to focus and [converge], PWM might cause issues because subconsciously, your eyes see the dark and white [alternating] differently
I've always thought the best analogous medical "model" to PWM sensitivity is photosensitive epilepsy. Granted photosensitive epilepsy is quite rare contrary to what popular culture (The Pokemon incident) leads you to believe and not much is understood about it, the "treatments" are anti-epileptic drugs with horrible side effects and possibly brain surgery.
I've heard that some of the children who have moved to Colorado, US and Holland for medical cannabis treatment have had photosensitive along with their epilepsy and it's interesting to note that for the children the cannabis works on, it helps with the photosensitive and possibly related vision problems.
martin However I wonder whether that wears the eyes out or not eventually in the long term, and is therefore harmful for health and should be fucking taken care of and responsibility taken already.
I think photosensitive epilepsy can get worse over time with exposure. My vision got worse with exposure to flickering lights and such prior cannabis treatment. Now I feel that with exposure I'm building a "resistance" to the offending sources.
martin However I wonder whether that wears the eyes out or not eventually in the long term, and is therefore harmful for health and should be fucking taken care of and responsibility taken already.
Been there, done that.
Maybe a trip to Amsterdam is in your future. I see it's about a 10 hour train ride. What fun that would be...
(Speaking of trains I was in Spain and France a year ago, those high speed trains are fun)
martin Thank you for your really detailed posts about what helped you martin! Now that you believe you're on the right track, please don't forget about us! Please give us a 1-month progress check, 3-month progress check, 6-month, etc, via calendar reminder if you have to, just to ensure that it's not just another red-herring!
I believe I have a similar source issue as you: convergence insufficiency & accommodative insufficiency. My eyes look fine, and I don't have any lazy eye or anything like that, but they are a bit wide-set, and may have a bit mroe trouble converging at near than a general control. Earlier you were saying convergence excess though, which is the exact opposite as convergence insufficiency, so I just want to make sure which one is correct in your case.
I just had my annual eye exam on Tuesday of this week. I also want to stress again what martin was saying. The problem is not one of vision acuity. Every year, with corrective lenses (either spectacles or contact lenses), I have 20/20 or even in some cases 20/15 vision. The issue is long term comfort in focusing at near (arm's length). This is more to do with how the two eyes team up to create a fused image that your brain processes.
It's unbelievable seeing the war between optometrists & ophthalmologists on this issue as well. It seems they believe two different schools of thought. Optometrists (if you get a good one) believe the issue may be due to binocular vision, and may do a "binocular vision assessment" on you and determine if you need prisms in your glasses, or binocular vision therapy. Ophthalmologists on the other hand will just believe you have dry eyes. It's pretty unbelievable that they spend 12 years at university to come up with a diagnosis that is so wrong. Don't waste your time. Go to an optometrist and ask for a binocular vision assessment (convergence testing, accommodation testing, etc)
If at all possible, I would like to try beating the source of the problem through binocular eye exercises. When I first presented my big issues in the fall of 2012, I couldn't keep that ruler with the E on it together and fused at my optometrist's office if my life depended on it. On Tuesday, it can pretty much nearly touch my nose and I still have it fused. The convergence exercises I did over the years made this possible. My challenge still though is holding this fusion for several hours a day I spend using a computer. Long into a work day, I will still have the issue of my eyes getting a bit tired, and my fused vision will get a bit "jumpy" (incidences of suppression)
martin, can you explain a bit more what makes these new glasses of yours so special? Do they use extra prisms to help with convergence and/or accommodation? If I find over the months/years that I can't quite get where I need to be with the eye exercises, I will resort to "cheating" and getting glasses that do it for me! 
MagnuM Just to chime in again to mention that it is unlikely I will ever be able to use both eyes together, and have always had convergence difficulties, also I am extremely short sighted with astigmatism.
I have what is known as alternating strabismus, one eye can see independently at a time, e.g. if i look out of my right eye, the left eye turns inwards but the right remains straight, same with the left eye, if looking through it, will look straight but the right will turn inwards. Essentially I have almost no stereo vision.
I have never noticed strain of any kind until LED monitors, HDMI inputs and Dithering came into action, I believe within the last 5-10 years.
Can any of you use these problem devices with one eye covered?
Also, surely if everybody on this forum can remember a time when they didn't have these problems, seek out that computer / graphics card / monitor combo and try it. If you still are eyestrain free with these old devices then surely the issue is directly with the new technology/drivers and not our own eyes.
These exercises are great - I'm realizing my symptoms of feeling "out of it," dizzy, like i've been staring into the sun.. just woke up, drunk, head is mush, etc.. are really my brain trying to come up with an explanation for why it suddenly can't focus correctly.
diop Wow, that really sucks! Has it always been like that? Have you ever asked anyone trained in binocular vision therapy if it may still be helpful for you? My binocular vision therapist from years ago said they had one kid that would look forward with one eye, and the other eye would essentially be pointed at the wall. It took 3 years of intense vision therapy, but I think they may have been able to graduate from the therapy! Kids are way easier to work with though, because the neuroplasticity of the brain is still at its highest.
I have two separate but distinct eye issues when it comes to computer monitors. Sometimes I will only talk about one at a time as not to confuse people. I can't look at LED monitors at all. It feels like staring into a very bright light, even at 0% brightness, and "hurts my brain". So I rule them out completely. I avoid them like an allergy-sufferer would. But even on long term "known-good" monitors I was getting eye strain and temple headaches after being on them a long time. That issue is what I credit the vision therapy for. I share that info because other people here talk about "eye strain" but sometimes without going into specifics about how long it takes. Then some people, maybe on other forums, would suggest they get their eyes checked (acuity), and they get frustrated because they may be seeing 20/20 without glasses. The correct suggestion may have been to get their binocular vision checked.
But yeah, getting a fried brain within minutes or sometimes seconds can't be related to any eye-teaming issues. I still don't know why I can't handle LED-backlit LCDs; I can only handle CCFL-backlit LCDs. I still think it's to do with intense blue-light though, because turning up the brightness, disabling flux, and turning off the "warm" Preset Mode on the OSD of my Dell U2410 (CCFL) will reproduce that "brain ache", but it's still more tolerable and takes longer to set in than an LED would.
reaganry What exercises in particular are you doing?
I've had tension headaches that started suddenly (woke up to them) since March 2006 that gave me those feelings you described (head full of cobwebs, feeling almost hungover, feeling really spaced-out and out-of-it, etc). They've really been a lot better in recent years. I credit the binocular vision therapy to that, as well as trying to maintain more consistent circadian rhythms (i.e. sleep-consistency: going to bed and waking up at the same time, even on weekends). I often used to wake up with a pretty stuffy head after oversleeping on the weekend and waking up close to noon (when I normally wake up at 7:30 AM for work), and that headache would usually last all day until at least the next sleep cycle.
Anything medical is very hard to "troubleshoot", unlike computers, just because there can be so many different factors at play (and sometimes, even combinations of factors)
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My case is convergence excess and accomodation insufficiency. And a small amount of shortsightedness on both eyes that I knew about before. My right eye had hidden esophoria that I have not been aware of, so it is difficult for me to keep a single merged image in binocular vision. Accomodation insufficiency is a low ability to focus and re-focus in a short time.
I do not do any exercises yet, as I am supposed to try get used to the glasses for 3 weeks. Then the optometrist will craft exercises specifically for my case. It might be a lot more complex than pencil push-ups.
The internet is amazing to find information that MAY tie to the problem you have, and go from there. However you absolutely have to solve it for YOURSELF, as everyone is different. If you think you have convergence insufficiency and you do pencil push-ups, and your issue is convergence excess, youll achieve nothing with those.
The glasses have special prisms that fix my esophoria and let the eye muscles relax, this in turn makes me more resitatnt when I also dont wear them.
I will definatley keep you posted about the progress and I am not leaving this place. First because It still might not be a complete solution, it might only prolong my ability to stand the new displays, so I am very curious whether we will solve here what the trigger is (for example dithering) and might be able to turn that off on all OS and phones.
Second because I wouldnt find the connection I did if it was not for this place, I still believe LEDs might be harmful and I owe a lot to you guys and want more people to get this solved
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MagnuM I would like that too, but the glasses also fix issues I cannot train for. Would you say you can now use problematic phones for a prolonged time, that before were painful, but eventually you tire off and your eyes start to return to their formerly natural position of that convergence excess?
diop I've found exercises here https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/Downloads/pdf/PiConvergenceExercises.pdf
martin What I need to do is test that with print. Almost everything is digital these days. We spend hours staring at our phones, completely mesmerized with what we are seeing or reading, and forgetting to look away and refocus our eyes from time to time. Holding any clenched muscle for a prolonged period of time would be difficult.
I need to read some book or instruction manual for multiple hours at a time, resisting any temptation to use my phone during that stretch of time, to see if the same familiar ache starts to build up. If it does not, then it's possible there is still something with the digital display of the iPhone 6S+ that makes the issue worse.
I run my iPhone with pretty low brightness and with NightShift mode on at all times. Since holding a phone is half the focal distance of looking at a computer monitor a full arm's length distance away, I only use my phone for minutes at a time when I need it. If I find an article that I like, I will sometimes email it to myself so I can read it on my larger and further away desktop monitor so I don't strain my eyes as fast.
Little strategies like this have seemed to make a difference.
This might be worth checking if you live in the USA - http://visionsource-olmospark.com/vertigodizziness-testing/
http://visionsource-olmospark.com/neurolenses/
yeah i get the fried brain in <2seconds with a single blue led.
i discovered i can correct it quickly with the 3 thumb stretch exercise...
that implies to me that the led has triggered my eyes to converge incorrectly...
then I think the 'fried' feeling is my brain interpreting blurry vision as intoxication. the way it interprets narrow FOV in video games as poisoning.
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So i have been fiddling with these exercises a bit. I've determined that my left eye is a little weaker. I kind of already knew this - it needs more correcting, and I'm also left-eye dominant. I've been doing the thumb exercises - far object focus, look at thumb... then thumb focus, look at far object.
Then I tried the 3 thumb stretch. It helped my strain DRASTICALLY in a very short period of time. I'm not sure that there will be lasting strengthening, but...
I have long suspected that all of this is in the visual system - certain inputs/cues causing our eyes to do things they shouldn't.
I recently got a new eyeglasses prescription which I haven't filled yet. I'm going to return to the Optometrist, ask about convergence, accomodation, and dominance, and see if there's a specific change they can make to the glasses for this purpose.