Treatments, desensitization, pills, exercises - solutions
This is a personal question. I do not know if anyone feels like answering.
Has anyone experienced that anti-depressants / anxiolytics improve tolerance to offensive electronics?
About 10-15 years ago I took Zoloft 25 to 50 mg per day, which was the smallest dose. I was prescribed the drug because I was under immense stress and I made the wrong use of it, in the sense that I ended up pushing myself even further. I was able to sleep really little and be very performant, work like a dog, do sport. I was tireless. After a year I decided to go back walk on my legs.
I remember that those days I had to buy a laptop to use up the long commuting time constructively and I spent 6-9 months looking around for a "good" device. I could not find anything easy on my eyes. I returned a few DELL laptops ordered online, because there was the option of returning within 15 days. Finally, I had to buy something at all costs and I opted for a LENOVO ThinkPad T60. I kept it in my drawer for 6 months because it would fry my eyes and provoke the characteristic neck pain within minutes. At a certain point, I had no chance but to use it. First, I found out that I could handle it connected to an external LCD monitor. Yet, the sole peripheral sight of the laptop display would bother me. Ultimately, I figured out that the laptop would pass from unusable to usable 15 hours in a row without the slightest issue by reducing the resolution from native to 1024 x 768. I already brought this up multiple times and I am kind of drifting from the point I intended to make.
All this to say that Zoloft did not help reduce my eyestrain in any way. Hadn't it been for the trick of reducing the resolution, I would have wasted EUR 1,800 in 2007.
I am not an expert of those types of medicines, but I believe Zoloft is catalogued as anti-depressant. I guess an anxiolytic may have a different effect on eyestrain. Has anyone tried out?
I also wonder what the principle behind the effectiveness of CBD oil in treating eyestrain is compared to anti-depressants / anxiolytics.
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AGI Hadn't it been for the trick of reducing the resolution, I would have wasted EUR 1,800 in 2007.
Back then I was never using bleeding-edge hardware (typically used Intel HD Graphics) but I was running the latest XP/7 and latest Intel drivers without issues.
Did outputting VGA make a difference? Or to a CRT?
diop Did outputting VGA make a difference? Or to a CRT?
Outputting VGA alone did not make a difference, I had to reduce the resolution. That was at home.
In the office I had a tiny CRT monitor, which I used at 1024 x 768 resolution too and I kept until my last day in late 2010. I was the last one using CRT in the whole institute. Colleagues were laughing at me, but I always refused to upgrade to LCD monitors according to the philosophy "don't touch what works fine".
Regarding antidepressants, I recently seem to have been cured of my pwm problems. For instance riding in a new car (especially at night) would give me terrible headaches from all the interior lights. The only thing I can think of is that I started antidepressants about 5 months ago. I started with trazodone and switched to paxil (for reasons unrelated to my headaches).
Anybody else have a similar experience?
some anti depressants reduce migraines, could be that
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When I am less anxious and less stressed… flicker bothers me less. So if the problem with the car displays is flicker as opposed to any other issue (usually it is, they use shitty LED's with PWM) then I find that during high stress periods my car can become undriveable.
So while the SSRI's might not actually help the problem, they likely decrease your stress/anxiety drastically, which in turn makes you stronger against these sorts of things.
Don't you have issue with dryness when taking antidepressants? I have tried them several times and each time they make my dry eyes even drier.
Antidepressants have a strong link to helping migraines. It was an ancillary side effect that helped move migraine researchers into different areas of the brain and different neurotransmitters. The big down side being antidepressants usually have some pretty awful side effects for a lot of people.
Wow, congrats on finding a solution! I'm currently on Zoloft & haven't noticed any improvement with flicker, but maybe I'll have a similar experience to yours if I tried Paxil. It seems like they're relatively similar, so I'm going to ask my Doctor about that.
Would you mind elaborating on your success with Paxil? For example, are you able to use all problematic screens now with no symptoms?
Fortunately for me, I have not had issues with my eyes being too dry.
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Here's a bit more background. I've had headaches, tinnitus and nausea from LEDs since about 2011. My laptops are running an older version of the Intel Graphics driver, and the Intel power-saving technology is disabled when on battery power. My phone is on 100% brightness and I've disabled night shift. My computer monitors & TVs are always set at 100% backlight. The LED lights in my house are a particular brand that doesn't use PWM. I even built my own PWM detector using the guide in another posting. My wife and I drive cars that are 15+ years old. So in my own home/car, with my own electronics, I am fine.
But when I've gone to some fast food restaurants with big LED displays, or I have to ride in a new car (especially at night with all the dashboard lights), or someone shoves their phone in my face and says "hey, look at this picture!" then I'll get headaches, tinnitus and nausea. Well, at least I used to. But for some reason that stopped a few months ago. I mean, I just realized about a week ago that I hadn't had any headaches in a few months and the only thing I can think of is the antidepressants.
So I haven't actually tried to do any experiments yet. My headaches and tinnitus can literally last for 2-3 days, so although part of me really wants to do some experiments, part of me is hesitant 
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's reassuring that you were able to find a solution, even if you aren't 100% of what actually solved it yet. Even just knowing a solution is possible is a huge step forward.
Anyway, I think we'd all be interested in hearing your experience with other problematic devices now that you seem to be improving, would you mind letting us know how those are working for you if you get the chance?
Absolutely - will do. I have one big project that I'm trying to wrap up in the next couple weeks and then I'll start some experiments. I have a new monitor that I bought that I couldn't really use due to headaches, etc. and a couple old Dells (I think they were 2407wfp) that I bought and couldn't use due to headaches, etc. So I'll start by giving these a shot and reporting back.
One thing I forgot to mention is that I went out to dinner a couple weeks ago and the light bulbs were flickering like crazy and I had some mild symptoms but I was thinking to myself "boy am I going to suffer tonight" because sometimes I don't get bad symptoms right away, but rather I'll get them an hour later and they can last for days. But then shortly after I left the restaurant I felt fine and didn't experience any bad symptoms.
We'll see what the experiments show, but what might be the case for me is that Paxil eliminates the long-term/residual effects, but doesn't completely eliminate the short term effects.
By the way, I'm working with my doctor to find the right dose of Paxil for me. I cut my dose in half about six weeks ago (due to some unrelated side effects I was experiencing) and recently the headaches/tinnitus/etc. have returned. I went over to a friend's house two days ago and they had string lights on their porch where I could visibly see the flicker and sure enough the past two days have been brutal with headaches/tinnitus/etc. So I'm going to increase my Paxil dose, but keep in mind that it can take time (roughly six weeks) for someone's body to adjust to changing the dosage. I'll post back when I have an update.
HI GregAtkinson, wonder how things are going with you? Is Paxil still working for you? Do you suffer from side-effects?
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I'll start by saying that I have been reluctant to tell people what my Paxil dose is because I don't want to seem like I'm giving medical advice. But at this point it's too confusing to explain my situation without mentioning the dose. For anyone reading this, please discuss this with your doctor so she can prescribe what's best given your individual situation. This is my story; YMMV.
I started at 20 mg of Paxil and that fixed my insomnia (and seems to make me less stressed) and also significantly improved my symptoms related to LED exposure. Unfortunately, it made me very tired during the day.
I then cut my Paxil dose in half to 10 mg and that was basically like not being on Paxil at all. I stayed on that dose for 6 weeks to let my body adjust. My insomnia returned as did my symptoms from LED exposure. So then I split the difference and started taking 15 mg of Paxil and was only able to stay on that dose for about 2-3 weeks because my insomnia was so bad. For me, being at 15 mg was like not being on Paxil at all.
So about 3 weeks ago I went back to 20 mg and the insomnia is gone and my LED symptoms are significantly reduced. And unfortunately my daytime sleepiness is back. I'm trying to power through the daytime sleepiness with some caffeine and a few other things.
At the risk of repeating myself, here's a summary of my symptoms: I would get headaches, tinnitus, and nausea from monitors, phones, led lightbulbs, newer car dashboards, etc. In my own home, I was able to configure devices so that they did not bother me (e.g., 100% brightness, turn off intel power saving technology, etc.), but we live in a society where LEDs are everywhere and I would get symptoms from those LEDs. These symptoms would often last for days, even after a fairly brief exposure to LEDs.
When I'm on 20 mg of Paxil, I still have fairly mild symptoms while I'm exposed to LEDs, but the symptoms go away very shortly after my exposure goes away. So 90% cured, in my opinion.
I still haven't purposely exposed myself to some of my other monitors that used to cause issues for me. I need to get this daytime sleepiness sorted out first before I'm mentally ready to do some more experiments. But it is definitely something that I will do.