To quote an email from @ryans (shared with permission)

On a separate note, I was wondering if we should have some kind of standard "intake" form on LED Strain, since we're getting new people. Stuff like:
1. What monitors have you used comfortably in the past?
2. What desktop computer have you used comfortably in the past?
3. What laptops have you used comfortably in the past?
4, What smartphone have you used comfortably?
5. What devices are giving you problems?
6. Have you had a vision exam that checked for convergence issues and eye teaming?
7. Any medical history? Lyme Disease? Auto immune?
I'm sure we can come up with more.

Would be good to collect this data and have it in a Google Spreadsheet maybe, as a starting point for research.

I like this idea, but have it integrated with the forum itself (maybe in the Welcome to LED Strain) or other topics, rather then a separate form. Or maybe there's no way around that because peopel are going to need to fill it out regardless.

I'm planning to make a bit extended survey in few weeks later. According to your suggestion i will add next questions:

What are triggering your problems (please also add some clarifications in 'Other' section)?
All of used LED monitors/dispalys
Only some of LED monitors/dispalys
All of used CCFL monitors
Only some of CCFL monitors
Led lamp light
Natural light (sunny weather)
Natural light (cloudy/rainy weather)
White color (wall, building, etc)
Blue color (wall, building, etc)
Specific VGA driver
Specific VGA adapters
Specific main processor
Specific display connection type to external monitor or inside notebook
Other:

What problem do you have (please also add some clarifications in 'Other' section)?
Eye discomfort
Eye pain
Eye tingling
Floaters
Double vision
Other eye problems
Ear problems
Headache
Nausea
Dizziness
Head muscle overtension
Strained head
Neck pain
Neck muscles overtension
Body excitement
Problems with sleep
No problems
Other:

Most of the people in current survey have sitting job, so next question would also be suitable:
How many times do you have current type of sitting job (if you have before more sitting job type also count it, count 'totatly sitiing' and 'mostly sitting' as same)

Or maybe ask more general question, how long do you have current lifestyle/job type?

Any further suggestion are welcome.

3 months later

There is still a few responds for original servey. Only 13. Let's wait a bit for other respondents to obtains statistically corrects results.

2 months later

I'm planning to close survey at the end of February. There are only 28 participants for now.
Maybe it's not enough for statistically correct results in general, but in any case this survey is open since September 2018 and we will see what we have for now. This is your last chance to participate!

19 days later

Survey is closed and now I will start to publish result data by some pieces!
There are 31 people which participated in survey! MANY THAKS FOR ALL!

I'm using R to draw graphics, it's my first attempt and if your know how make it better please contact me. Data in all pies is presented in %.
Be careful with any speculations below cause there are only 31 responses and it could be statistically incorrect to make any generalizations.
Please note that survey duration was 6 month, so there is at least 6 month error in all dates.

There are also several not fully correct question:

  1. Question about problem duration was restricted by "> 15" years, and in representations below it's converted to "15" years : 6 people in "2003" year on corresponding year distribution)
  2. In question about trauma it's not clear when it was occured (before led related problems or not: "Have you ever had trauma in any of these body parts?")

"How old are you?" - "How many years do you have these problems?"

2018 - "How many years do you have these problems?"

"Do you have now any problems with: Overtensioned jaw/head muscles, Jaw, Neck, Back, Shoulder?"

Correlation between "Age/Year of problem start" and presented problems

"How many citizens live in your city?"

"Have you ever had trauma in any of these body parts: Head, Shoulder, Back, Brain?

To be continued...

11 days later

...Next portion of graphics

How long do you speak during a DAY (in average)?

Do you live in a stressful environment?

Do you have stressful job?

Do you have siting job?

Correlation between job type and and presented problems (from post above)

How much time do you spend in front of computer/smartphone during a DAY (in average)?

To be continued...

  • AGI likes this.
5 days later

How long do you walk during a WEEK (in average, don't include bus/tram/metro/etc time)?

How long do you make in average any other physical activity in a WEEK (except walking)?

Total Activity (combination of 2 graphics above)

Total Activity and Job Type

Do you make eye relaxation?

Do you make any body relaxation exercises/practices?

5 days later

I've tried to find some interesting in survey results. And there are some findings:

  1. Most of people (77.4%) have sitting job ("Totatlly sitting" and "Mostly sitting" answrers)
  2. 48.4% have problem in jaw/neck/shoulders area
  3. 70.9% have stress on job from "time to time" (including 16.1% of people that have stressful job)
  4. 74.1% spent more than 6 hours during a day with computer/smartphone in average (54.7% - > 8 h; 87% - > 5 h)
  5. 90.3 % walks during a day less than 1h 25 min in average in a day(74.2% - < 1 h)
  6. 74.1 % make any physical activity less than 1h 45 min in a day in average (87 % - < 2h 10 min, 100% < 2h 45min)
  7. 74.2 % do eye relaxation [exercises] irregularly or don't do it at all
  8. 80.6 % do body relaxation exercises/practices irregularly or don't do it at all

NB: If anybody need any additional charts ping me

14 days later

amazing! thanks for doing this. The jaw thing seems significant. It also seems like our average screentime is way too high for people that have screen problems

  • AGI replied to this.

    reaganry The jaw thing seems significant.

    I have been sleeping with a mouth guard for a month, and have not experienced any improvement of my condition. Same for lutein, vitamin B12 and omega-3 (I am almost in the third month of the treatment). Not that I had big expectations to be honest...

        AGI yeah, i've been doing mouth guard, b12, astraxanthan and grounding my bed(!). all inconclusive.

            reaganry AGI
            I also think that jaw problem could be a major risk-factor for "led strain".
            3 years ago a got permanent tension in my neck (with bunch of another problems, not sure that primary reason was linked with my jaw problem, but as second it might be; I wrote about it here in more details). Briefly speaking it takes me about 2 year of more or less regular physical exercise to mostly get rid this tension in the neck and become less sensitive to led light.

            Now I mostly think that led related problems could be caused by restricted blood flow to brain and eyes cause of general blood vessels degradation (low physical activity) and neck muscle restructuring (cause of wrong sitting position, see my post here and below for details) that also results in low brain/eye blood feeding. Seems that jaw problems causes additional muscle tension in neck/head area and as result bad blood delivery to eyes.

            According to survey it's about 80% of people that have mostly sitting or totally sitting job (check your sitting position!). I read that it's recommended to walk at least 8000 step per day (~ 6-7 km, 1h ~ 1h 30min) and seems according to survey it's not true for most of responders.

            Here is additional chart with computer/smartphone time and job type:

            • AGI replied to this.

                  kammerer Thanks again for your work. I agree that there are multiple factors at play. However I am more and more inclined to think that my condition is due to something very subtle like an intolerance to light from certain regions of the spectrum and/or flickering. I was thinking thru the past 10-15 years. I worked for instance with a guy affected by evident strabismus. He did not have any issue with pc, monitors and so forth. Out of 100 people there will be probably only a few who do not have back or neck issues, jaw issues, sleeping problems. It is not the other way around. I had 3 horrible years at work from 2013 to 2016, two good years between 2016 and 2018, and after that it has been the worst nightmare imaginable. What is the difference? The devices I was forced to work on. The office lighting.
                  I have had so many good and bad moments spanned over 15 years that I cannot believe I am now paying the consequences of over-use. With good I mean I could stand in front of electronic devices forever, work over 80 hours a week.
                  So for me nowadays jogging helps, stretching helps, but after a few minutes on a bad device I am still back to the nightmare. It is not the jaw, it is not my neck. It is something which doctors cannot understand. Eyes or brain or whatever. That said, I cannot get cured for something which cannot be diagnosed, so all I am left with is to try to sleep more, do more sports, buy a mouth bite, do stretching, bla bla bla, but none of this is a game changer. Only my opinion.

                      AGI I agree. My fitness level/mood/diet is completely irrelevant to these problems.

                      I have a known good setup at home - it doesn't matter if I exercise every day (which I do when I can), or if I'm off sick and home for days (which has happened recently) - the display output is the display output. Yes, exercise etc may help allow people to tolerate the output for longer, but there is still a level of discomfort in the background. This could be happening en masse for many people who have 'headaches' and claim it's eye strain when it's actually the dithering/flickering techniques in use today.

                      Other posts stating that people should just accept it and adapt their eyes are missing the point. We need to know not only what these changes are, but why they have been implemented. What is the gain from a technological perspective vs a health and safety perspective?

                      I still think IMO the ultra-intensity of today's screens+wider colour range may be tolerable if we know all sources of underlying flicker are absent.

                          AGI diop
                          If I understand correctly you are agreed with me (on your own experience) that regular physical exercises (maybe we short breaks) increases tolerance to LED light in some range. In such way we should investigate what is the mechanism behind this observation?

                          • Is it causes more strengthed (strength) blood flow?
                          • Or it works as compensation for some block inside body
                          • Or it's just relates to sleep quality

                          (Please note that all this cases could be viewed as arguments for "restricted blood flow" hypothesis)

                          It also open question about "neck muscle restructurezation" hypothesis: do you perform any neck/shoulder related exersices?

                          I read that muscles have some kind of memory (muscle memory). If all of us have several years of stessed muscle state how many times are required to erase this wrong memory?
                          (Note that blood vessels (e.g.: vein, aorta) also have muscle layer and physical exercises affects blood vessels state)

                              dev