Hello, I wanted to summarize what helped me so far and what might solve the problem, or some parts of it for good. I have been diagnosed by an optometrist (not mistaken for an ophtalmologist/eye doctor) to have eye convergence excess and resulting accomodation insufficiency. That means my eyes do not work together properly to hold a single image instead of seeing double and I am already putting a lot of effort into that in real life. Together with this my visual system (not eyes, but brain) is very sensitive. This might be the cause of the problem I have with modern displays - in some yet uncomfirmed way they might disrupt vision, causing my system to work very hard to keep a clear and singular image/text. That leads to eyestrain, overload, headache and migraine. The help for me first were glasses with prismatic lenses, that ease of the problems by about 50%. I can see with them clearly only up to one meter and I was recently using an iphone 6plus that was before unusable for 2 or more hours with a slight discomfort and very small to zero headache after. Another help is doing a visual therapy, that should make me able to use my binocular vision like a healthy person. That consists of about 6 months of 30mins daily exercises using - brock string, switching various lenses while reading to learn to adjust accomodaton, and tranaglyphs with 3d glasses, that I have to keep connected in one image while they move further and futher apart. I hope that this solves the problem. Regarding flicker sensitivity I do not know if that helps, as noone knows which individual devices really do flicker and which not and how much. Its up to everyone to test with their own measuring tools. There is a possibility that flicker is disrupting the vision and when you get it fixed, it doesnt bother you anymore. You can probably do a little test of your own with the brock string - either find one or make one. Then when focusing on the middle bead (2nd), try to be aware of seeing double the closer(1st) and the farther(3rd) bead and the string too. Then, the string should meet in the bead youre focusing onto. If it crosses sooner, you have convergence excess, if it crosses behind it, you have the opposite.

martin Before modern displays, did you have any symptoms (like reading printed books)?

I can attest to martin's solution because I am similar. In 2012 I was diagnosed by my optometrist as having a convergence insufficiency as well as accommodative insufficiency after a binocular vision exam. I did some pretty dedicated in-office vision therapy for about a year, and weekly "maintenance exercises" which I do on the weekend to try to hold what I have. I'm still symptomatic, but not nearly as much as I was during the initial symptom onset. I haven't had a decent chance of testing pure print for a while, but on Saturday, July 21st I did. I was reading a whole bunch of mail with fresh eyes that day when my eyes started to ache and I got that familiar "junky head" feeling and had to take a break. Since I do most of my reading on some sort of screen (either computer monitor or phone), I haven't had an extended period of reading the printed word in a while. So it would appear my symptoms are caused from reading overuse, and perhaps the fact that my brain works harder to maintain fused vision than another person acting as a control. Separate from this issue is severe head pain and back-of-the-eye ache when viewing a computer monitor which has an LED backlight. Instead of taking hours to set in, it takes minutes or even seconds... I can literally feel it immediately. My only "solution" so far is total and complete avoidance of these displays, but research is ongoing to try to find a way to tolerate them (as I cannot hide forever!)

ryans no, not that I remember. But recently I was reading material on a very glossy page and after that I had similar pain and discomfort, however never as big as with the displays. Once I heal my eyes and I know theyre not the problem anymore, I can figure out what else might be (maybe obvious PWM flicker will still be an issue after).

Have you tried eyepatches? They're probably not good for day-to-day use, but good for certain emergencies, and they might help test whether conversgence issues and double vision are the sole cause of your eye-strain. (I am strobe-sensitive and sometimes use them for extra protection against turn signals and other flashing lights. I don't get any extra protection from ordinary eye-strai though.)

Ananiujitha I have, thats how I got started with my optometrist. Seemed to improve a lot, but Id like to keep my binocular vision. Also that one is hard to fool as even when your eye is in complete dark, it tends to converge to where youre looking with your uncovered eye. You can try it yourself. It does not get deactivated by covering it. No image fusion is needed of course, but the problem might not disappear completely. Also some issues like accomodation still apply to only one eye being used. Eyes and vision are separate things, one being the organ and the other the processing in the brain.

Hi, I'm thinking about visiting this guy: https://centerforunlimitedvision.com/vision-therapy/ Seems to also offer light therapy https://centerforunlimitedvision.com/light-therapy/ with some machine. My goal is to get my binocular vision tested thoroughly.

I wanted to share my progress with the eye therapy here so far. Recently I have been asked by my optometrist to participate at their conference as a model for the problems theyre trying to diagnose and solve. Few other optometrists that were being taught how to measure these issues properly tried to diagnose me, it was all recorded and later used as education material. I must say I have a new level of admiration for the guy who diagnosed me originally, as he does his work way above what other specialists there were capable of. Some joked after that "in a regular office this would take 5 minutes, youre testing him for one hour", implying how "well" other optometrists do their jobs. Ive told him my concerns that the therapy might not work, or that the glasses dont work all the time and I still get headaches with them sometimes. He said the glasses fix about 1/4 of the whole problem, and that after 2 months of the therapy it is way too soon to see results - I have improved a lot, but he said the most important thing is to integrate what I have been training into daily use. Then the last part of the therapy will actually be training to be able to use my eyes in the opposite extreme of what they are doing now (excessive convergence, resulting accomodation issues, getting stuck in a loop - adjusting one calls for adjustment of other, conditions on the screen change, its called again until the pain we all know so well - this makes a lot of sense to me in regards to flicker, but lets not get too ahead). He also mentioned that it is very common to feel like you can tolerate problematic displays right after the training for an hour or so, and for that to fade, as lasting change needs a very long and slowly progressing approach. Also good days and bad days are very common (sometimes the pain doesnt set in so soon, other days its instant). He also mentioned he doesnt know if it will cure it 100%, as there is still a lot of unknowns in this field. He siad they tried to publish some articles but a lot of the medical community doesnt care or think its bullshit, and consider the people to be a psychological case. So a lot of what you described here in regards to this condition actually makes sense "by the book". Lets see in 4 months then how much this training will really help. But if you get better right after eye exercises, theres a big chance this is part of your problem and you just need to find the right person to actually help. Just a story to put all this into another perspective - there was a lady in one of the optrometrists office with such bad migraines, that some doctors drilled a hole in her head in attempt to stop them. It helped, but since then she sees double. He crafted glasses to fix that and shes eternally grateful now, as the diplopia is way less of a problem than the migraines according to her, even though shes dependent on the glasses now.

Very happy to read about more people recently finding a solution. I had some poor convergence 15 years ago. I corrected it by doing exercises. I have not "trained" for a while, and I know that doing that and the Tibetan wheel helps provide some relief. However, I am very reluctant to believe that convergence is my issue. And I hate "believing". I would like some of the doctors I have paid hundreds of dollars to tell me what is what, instead of walking in the dark. My convergence cannot improve or worsen from one day to the next following a bloody phone update. I was at an osteopath this evening. I had not used the phone for a day and was feeling well already before going in, even after 10 hours on my Mac which I could not believe until months ago I would be able to tolerate. Then after the treatment I turned my phone on and vaguely looked at Google Maps. All my health gone within seconds. And I am not imagining things. I am really clueless, as I could use this phone in the past without any problem. It is worse than the worst allergic reaction I can think of. It is one of those days I would really like to throw the phone out of the car window...it has become a nightmare. That said, crying is useless. I need to react. Since I do not currently have any other plan, I will go back to exercise my eyes' convergence...and try to implement any good habit I can think of, like sleeping more or eating well. But, boy, I see it really dark...

AGI The light or flicker might be doing something to disturb visual systems ability to do proper eye teaming, so its not that your vergence all of a sudden goes bad. Its always bad, you compensate, in some conditions you cannot. Also dont just do the exercises, it has to be a guided program in varying intensity and progressions.

I wanted to share my progress here. I was doing the exercises half-wrong for 2 months, so I was strenghtening the already overpowered eye muscles (thats a reminder that doing something at home that you found on the internet might either make it worse, or might not help at all if it doesnt apply to your specific case). Now I am on the right track. After two weeks my camera display stopped causing me nausea and stinging pain, isntead it is fine and over time it develops into a pressure. I shouldnt see any progress below 2 months, but I think I am already seeing it a little bit now. Also when testing a painful iphone, I was able to relax while looking into it, as I know now which muscles get tight and cramped and I know how to relax them. I cannot do it for too long yet, however the change is quite noticeable. I my case a complete removal of symptoms via visual therapy is at 84% of cases, so I will see how it develops. Also when I am tired, I cannot successfully complete the exercises that I did with ease the previous day, maybe explaning why some people have better or worse days with certain displays. I also guess that people who had intial pain from new displays but got "used to it", might have had similar problem but with way less deviancy (mine being extreme at approximately 15 out of 12 measuring points), so therefore the staring into the displays served in itself as a form of therapy and the eyes adjusted.

My possible solution, treatment and progress so far

tfouto

martin Blue filter amblyopia treatment protocol for strabismic amblyopia: a prospective comparative study of 50 cases.
Metzler U1, Ham O, Flores V, Claramunt M, Sepulveda C, Casanova D.
Author information
Abstract
PURPOSE:
Previous studies of monochromatic visual evoked potentials confirm the strong suppression of (the cortical representation of) paracentral retinal areas of functionally amblyopic eyes, by a flat response to a blue stimulus. A clinical trial stimulating these areas with blue light was encouraging, and justified a prospective comparison of this treatment with conventional classic treatment.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS:
In 50 strabismic children with amblyopia, the blue filter treatment protocol (flash stimulation with, and the wearing of, a blue filter during occlusion of the better eye for one hour daily) was compared with the classical treatment (full time total occlusion by patch) in a prospective matched and randomized study. Patients 3 to 7 years old without previous treatment and a visual acuity up to 0.3 were admitted to the study. Visual acuity and fixation behavior were used as the parameters of comparison. Visual Evoked Potentials by monochromatic flashes were also studied. Results of treatment were compared after 6 months.

RESULTS:
The visual acuity outcome for the blue filter treatment was "statistically significantly" better (p=0.005). The greatest improvement was seen in the subgroup of children with eccentric fixation (p=0.01). Fixation behavior also showed a better outcome from the blue filter treatment (p=0.05) favoring especially children between 3 and 5 years. In children of this age with a visual acuity better than 0.1 we found a very "statistically significant" difference between the two treatments (p=0.004). In children 3 to 5 years old with poorer visual acuity we also found a "statistically significant" difference in the two treatments (p=0.04). The interocular difference of amplitude on the Visual Evoked Potentials also demonstrated more improvement in children treated with the blue filter. This treatment improved especially the cortical response to blue flash stimulation, correlating to paracentral retinal areas.

CONCLUSIONS:
The blue filter treatment protocol provided better results for treating amblyopia than the conventional classic occlusion treatment method. We propose that stimulation of these paracentral retinal areas triggers a better disinhibition of a functionally amblyopic eye.

tfouto

martin Are you sure you are sensitive to dithering?

martin

tfouto No, I have no idea what Im sensitive to. Id guess, given my faulty eye teaming, anything that can disturb it - pwm, blue light, flicker, dither, glare...? If I knew Id know a technical solution. I dont, so Im attempting health solution.

ryans

martin He mentioned the best center in the USA being in New York, I think some people already posted a link to health thread.

Visited the center today. Not sure if it's the same one, if you could get a specific place, I'd greatly appreciate it. I would love to see them.

I was told I have definite eye teaming and focusing issues and very bad depth perception and peripheral vision and suggested vision therapy. He couldn't term a specific diagnosis, but that coverence insufficiency is the closest one.

The vision therapy out of pocket will cost a several thousand USD. I am still trying to see if my insurance will pay for some of it. Out of pocket I'm hesitant to pay for it in total unless I knew it'd fix the issue. But, I don't think there's any harm other then cost and time.

Using my new LG G7 gives me these strange muscle twitches and noise sensitivity. Makes me think it's neurological or nerveous system related. The optometrist told me he thinks my nerveos system is very sensitive based on pupil dilation. He said different colors of light have a great affect on the nerveous system and showed how my muscle strength actually weakened when these light colors came on. I wonder if this phone is emitting some color of light that I'm sensitive to.

He also said my eyes were very slow to focus, something you also seem to take a long time with (mine was several seconds, but not quite 10).

I'm considering trying a different behavioral optometrist to see if they come to the same conclusion that VT is helpful.

Glad to hear about your updates though and love the progress. I really hope this fixes your problem. Please keep them up!!

martin

ryans Amazing to hear that you have some sort of diagnosis and that it fits with the general theory. Really sad to hear how much that costs. Maybe it would pay off for you to take a trip to europe and get the care here, although I dont know how possible it is. When my therapy is finished, including two sets of glasses, It wont cost me more than 600 dollars in total over the 6 months. The prices in usa are outrageous.

JTL

ryans I wish I could find such a doctor here.

MagnuM

ryans Maybe hold off on any expensive therapies until you can evaluate the efficacy. I have done VT before, and I do maintenance exercises at home twice a week which don't cost me anything. Of course it helps that I've been through the training before and I know how to do the exercises. You can always try strengthening your convergence with simple pencil pushups.

These exercises will only help for the issue that your eyes eventually get tired after a long session of computer use, or if you're doing a lot of intense work like in Excel or reading a bunch of email all day.

However, it won't help for the issue where your eyes/brain instantly ache upon looking at the display within seconds/minutes. This happens to me on LED-backlit monitors, and I have not found a solution yet unfortunately. Avoidance is the only recommendation I have in that case. Here's hoping that my Dell U2410 lives a long life!

ryans

JTL I can ask if he knows anyone in BC area. I suspect there's definitely some in Seattle area at the very least. If I didn't live with my folks, I'd let you stay at my place to get a diagnosis and treatment, but the commute is kind of far.

ryans

MagnuM However, it won't help for the issue where your eyes/brain instantly ache upon looking at the display within seconds/minutes

Yeah I'm very skeptical it will help me with neurological or nervous system related issues.

martin

MagnuM Thats incorrect. You train your nervous system also, therefore it can help with a nervous system response over time. Nerves dont grow like muscles do, but there are adjustments and changes too.
I have an exercise with transparent card, where I see clearly how my vergence works (or doesnt) with accomodation. Its simple and cheap, but you cannot achieve this with pencil pushups.

My optometrist advised me to use a new iphone I bought (iphone 7) to supplement my training in a way that I have to find a line of when the pain gets too much, stop there and repeat when Im fresh again.
It seems the new training Im doing kicked my system into adjusting. Two weeks ago I had a migraine from the phone, then nausea within minutes, then sickness. Now I use it all day and except for a tightness and pressure in head when I look into it too long, its ok. Even played a game on it for hour without the glasses and had slight discomfort at the end of the session.
Also the recovery my body needs has changed, as in I can use it for texting, reading web and so on (even without my glasses now), and if it starts being uncomfortable, I stop and within few minutes to half hour Im ok again, as opposed to the past, when exposure of 15 minutes could result in a days migraine.
I hope this keeps improving with advances in the training to the point when Im part of the 95% who have no issues whatsoever.
I have also changed the background to greyer colors, and set nighshift on permanently at about 35%.

I dont want to get ahead of myself or get my hopes up too much, however if this keeps improving like that, I might be symptom free by the end of the training. I dont dare to use a modern computer yet, but the phone is a welcome improvement.

JTL

ryans Thanks.

Doubt I'll be visiting NY and thereabouts anytime soon though.

tfouto

martin So the optometrist idea was that you should buy a phone that gives you eye strain, and use it little to little to adapt your brain.

So how did you get better with your phone? Just getting used? Or doing specific exercises for it?

You use your phone with prism glasses?

martin

tfouto Please read back in this thread, the progress is written there. Exercises for convergence excess and accomodation insufficiency. I bought the phone because I needed it, but was afraid it might interfere with my training (it does when I overuse it, tires the eyes so much I cant get results in training after), however he advised me not to be afraid and find a line where I stop and start next day, or later. Couple monhts ago, before the training, I couldnt use it for more than 10-15 minutes and when I did, I had a raging migraine for the rest of the day.
This by no way means there isnt something different with new display tech. My old iphone 4s still is very comfortable to use for hours.

Yes with prism glasses but also now without them. Im still advised to use it with glasses though. It also helped to start one eye at a time only, before implementing binocular vision. So for couple days when I was using the phone I always covered one of my eyes (and was switching them every few minutes).

tfouto

martin Did it worked better with only one eye at the time?

Was it worse with your lazy eye?

martin

tfouto Not sure, it seemed the same. But the training and the whole issue is indeed made more difficult by the fact that I have shortsightedness only on one eye, therefore extra effort required for both eyes to cooperate properly (its easier for the brain to prefer the sharper one).

tfouto

Came from the doctor. My sight is perfect. Except for the small insuficient convergence. He told me that there was nothing i could do. I asked him if there were eye convergence therapy i could do, he said that it would do anything. But i said i'd like to try, and he gave me a contact. So maybe i would try.

I think there is something about convergence. There's just to many people here who have convergence issues. That seems to much to be just a concidence. He's there anyone here who knows from eye exams, that dont have any convergence isuficienct?

hpst

I think everyone has SOME degree of convergence issues...the eyes are rarely 100% perfect in all ways and the brain does most of the visual work. But lets say its just us....I have heard no plausible theory as to why that would mean only CERTAIN display types etc are bad for us. Maybe something like dithering and its constant movement challenges the eye muscles too much and since ours are already struggling it's painful? But that's nothing more than a reaching guess and no doctor has been able to answer it for me.

Also every doctor I have talked to about this has said its dangerous to DIY therapy as you can end up making the problem worse and causing double vision etc. You can of course be given home exercises, but just doing the ones someone else told you about online seems foolish since not everyone's insufficiencies are the same.

tfouto

hpst by your theory since nobody has a plausible theory and nobody knows, it doesn't exist.

DIY is dangerous, but not with a therapeut.

tfouto

hpst This is just plain wrong. Not everybody has some degree of convergence issues.

hpst

tfouto I don't know why you think I said/meant either of those things. I didn't say something doesn't exist because there is no plausible theory...I simply said I have heard no plausible theory. As to your second point I said exactly that...home exercises guided by a doctor are one thing.

tfouto

hpst We are in the dark, what seems plausible means 0. That what it is.

The inner workings of the eye and brain are too complex for us to say what is plausible, what is logic. That's nothing.

We have to try experiment, and hopefully stumble in something.

martin

tfouto I did the exercises wrong in the beginning for about two months and yes, it got even worse. You absolutely have to do the specific ones that balance out yout deviation, otherwise nothing will happen or in worst case youll strenghten it even.

It has to be led and adjusted by a specialist with checkups. Finding one seems most difficult to most. Even among optometrists many dont believe in heterophoria and only want to get involved when it develops into visible strabismus or diplopia.
If your doctors examination doesnt last longer than one hour, its probably bad and you should go elsewhere. Mine took 2.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterophoria

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