Treatments, desensitization, pills, exercises - solutions
i wonder how VR could fit into this divergence scenario- with the separate screens for each eye
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martin did you try this three thumbs one to strengthen divergence? seems to help for me immediately .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1hplhaPHoAWhat if our dithering/flickering here conveys a 'magic eye 3D-like' false depth message to the brain, causing us to focus behind the screen (overconverge).
(seee also lenticular printing, stereogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram)-
interesting (to me) this effect was discovered by Wheatsone. his name come up all the time for me - bridge rectifier(turns ac to dc, scales), telegraph, speed of electricity, spectroscopy, invented the concertina(!)
more exercises here ... http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/VT/therapy.html
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Neo is not the one, btw.
to see the magic eye/autostereograms people have to "learn to train their eyes to decouple eye convergence from lens focusing"
The eyes normally focus and converge at the same distance in a process known as accommodative convergence. That is, when looking at a faraway object, the brain automatically flattens the lenses and rotates the two eyeballs for wall-eyed viewing. It is possible to train the brain to decouple these two operations. This decoupling has no useful purpose in everyday life, because it prevents the brain from interpreting objects in a coherent manner. To see a man-made picture such as an autostereogram where patterns are repeated horizontally, however, decoupling of focusing from convergence is crucial.[2]
By focusing the lenses on a nearby autostereogram where patterns are repeated and by converging the eyeballs at a distant point behind the autostereogram image, one can trick the brain into seeing 3D images. If the patterns received by the two eyes are similar enough, the brain will consider these two patterns a match and treat them as coming from the same imaginary object. This type of visualization is known as wall-eyed viewing, because the eyeballs adopt a wall-eyed convergence on a distant plane, even though the autostereogram image is actually closer to the eyes.[21] Because the two eyeballs converge on a plane farther away, the perceived location of the imaginary object is behind the autostereogram. The imaginary object also appears bigger than the patterns on the autostereogram because of foreshortening.
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reaganry Hello, thank you for the wholesome desciption. I have not tried it yet, as the specialist I am seeing mentioned that the exercies need to be crafted and adjusted in relation to my specific problem only (convergence excess, hidden esothropia, accomodation insufficiency). I have the glasses on the way in two weeks, I will test them for a month or two and then he will see how he needs to craft those exercises.
Hopefully then, this problem might be resolved, or lessed to enough degree that I can use any modern tech for work-amount of time.
I have to stress again - if you or any of you here have 20/20 eyesight, good ophtalmology results etc., it means NOTHING. Eyesight and VISION are two different things. You need to find an optometrist that can find possible hidden issuses with your eyes. A good article for clarification is here - http://www.children-special-needs.org/vision_therapy/esophoria_reading.html
Why the new displays cause this issue to surface and give headaches? I dont know, nor do I know if this will be the final solution. It is possible that the new tech triggers this issue more than the old one. My current theory that the specialist finds interesting is that with flickering displays, the need to reaccomodate and keep eyes fixed on letters while reading is higher (remember PWM and the blurry fonts and words example from tftcentral?). Therefore if one lacks in this department, PWM, flicker and who knows what other issue will sent his vision into overload.
The issue I have is of about 5-10% prevalence in society, which would also go with the estimated numbers we often see on PWM sensitivity and on the intel forum eyestrain.
He also has a person under treatment who has the same issue as me, but instead of migraines he gets very bad vertigo. The reaction of each person might be very individual.
He said that with new tech and VR, more and more people will probably start having these issues and find their way into his office.
martin if it is an issue with both eyes accommodating/converging together then you would think that viewing a screen with a patch over one eye would eliminate the issue?
if it doesn't solve it, I would imagine any 20/20 individual with both eyes functioning well would see everything ok but then with one eye's vision occluded then notice the flickering/dithering/PWM?
Something weird for y'all to mull over, I assure you this is 100% true.
I have similar screen issues to everyone here, phones are a massive issue, newer graphics cards, keep to a few specific monitors I know I can use etc etc otherwise I will suffer migraines.
Sunflower Oil, whenever I eat it, regardless of what with/form, my screen problems become 10x worse and suddenly I can't use any screens without pain for a few days.
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So I have the glasses, and it does help. A lot. As much as solving the whole issue, but I dont want to get ahead of myself. They are for my specific case and intensity of convergence excess and accomodation insufficiency. I am not sure whether I am still sensitive to PWM (might be), I havent tested it yet. But the iphone 6s plus that was giving me terrible issues before is now fine. Completely above 50% brightness and seems to be slightly less comfy below 50%, but I am not sure if it has PWM or if Im just making it up. I get some slight headpressure, but its easy to forget about it when reading or doing something on it. Switching screen brings about slight discomfort that slowly fades. Old screens and safe browsers (waterfox) are still most comfortable though, but even here I sometimes get slight strain, mostly from getting used to the glasses.
They only work for 20cm-1m so far, only made for close work now. The optometrist said that I need to take 3 weeks to get used to them and then we can do specific exercises, so I can handle phones and screens for some time even without them (the fist two days of using them, my right eye, which is the lazy one, hurt terribly even on slight touch). They also serve as therapeutic tool, as they relax the tense muscles, so when I wear them all day and take them off, I can tolerate the bad displays longer and better.
I strongly recommend for everyone to find an OPTOMETRIST who will give you 1-2 hours of his time in measurements. Travel if you have to. I had to take a 3,5hr train ride couple times to see him. Theres two people who do this properly in my whole country (10million). He has a PhD in biophysics and does optometry as a main job. I think, after three years, my issue might be solved now. But I will see how it develops I still might be prone to migraines, or am, and have to be careful of other possible triggers or get it solved via the SCM stretching, massage, acupuncture and other possible means.
The theory? I have no idea. There is something that triggers hidden eye issues in new displays and makes them manifest. Why I cant figure out, neither can the optometrist. The new stuff seems to give a lot less to focus on and lock focus on. Dithering, gloss, glare, anti aliasing, pwm, who knows what else. But hes doing research and also wants to experiment with VR.
I would love to hear of more people having this issue solved, as I know how terrible it is in daily life. You can be the strongest and fittest person ever, but headaches like that will make you crippled, tired and weak. Ive been marked as crazy, people make fun of me, very few believed me, I became really depressed and demotivated and I was expecting to end up as a manual worker after building my education and career for 10 years, and leave all my life behind as most would think I went insane with a change like that. I respect manual work, but I would be missing those 10 years of experience and all my friends who do completely different things.
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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.