Non-PWM Sufferer - Narrowed Down to Blue-Light Sensitivity or Overuse
I have also been diagnosed with accomodative and convergence insufficiency. Prior to that I had upper body RSIs as well. I had sustained dozens of hours a week on the computer for many years without pain.
I know that the issue for me is similar to yours - the intrinsic (ciliary) and extrinsic muscles of the eye (which are responsible for accommodation and convergence respectively, as you know) become cramped. The tension in these muscles causes further difficulty with accommodating and converging, creating a vicious cycle.
What has changed about modern display technology which causes dysfunction in these muscles? I think that if your eye must constantly re-accommodate and re-converge (as people have described, although they say 're-focus', and they refer to these processes individually), its muscles will become fatigued quickly.
There are some studies out of Japan where workers with eyestrain from VDTs were given astaxanthin. The researchers found that those given the supplement had less eyestrain and importantly, did better on tests of accomodative power. I'll compile the studies and post them/
Have you ruled out temporal dithering? I find that it is the biggest cause of my eye pain. It's incredibly obvious on Macbooks from 2012-2014, on some models you can even SEE it (as flickering or dancing pixels when you get your eyes right up against the screen).
degen Hi degen, I was seeing some of your posts before, and it was very interesting that you had the exact same two binocular vision difficulties that I did. I think it was important that I admitted the amount of hours I spent on a digital display each week, because all that reading and close-work of the eyes I'm sure eventually contributed to having such troubles. Did you ever do anything in particular to help these two issues, like binocular vision therapy?
What I can't explain though is how I have this abnormal sensitivity to other LED screens in the office. I pretty much outright refuse to work with anyone deskside that has an LED monitor, as I will be "topped out" in visual strain for the entire day with only a few minutes exposure. What's worse is they have the brightness on these things cranked up like crazy. That cannot be good for long-term eye health. I don't know what I'm going to do when LEDs are rolled out everywhere.
I've also noticed that if I watch TV for an extended period on the couch far away, my eyes will eventually hurt as well. This doesn't make sense from a convergence and accommodative standpoint, as this is distance viewing of at least 15 feet. I don't watch a whole lot of TV for long periods of time these days, but it is something I have recently noticed. Maybe my brain just doesn't like focusing on any one thing for too long of a period of time.
- Edited
Gurm Hi Gurm,
I haven't ruled it out yet, but I'm not sure if it applies in my situation.
At work I use a Dell U2410 (with the settings in my original post) on an Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 display adapter.
At home I use a Dell U2410 (with the settings in my original post) on a "Zotac GeForce GTX 580 AMP!" graphics card.
I'm not sure if the latter display adapter uses temporal dithering or not, but it does use nVidia drivers. If I remember correctly, nVidia has temporal dithering disabled by default.
Both work and home seem to be "equal bad" when it comes to eventual symptoms, which is why I've considered temporal dithering a "point of interest" only at this present time.
You are correct, MagnuM. GTX 580 wouldn't have any temporal dither. I'd look elsewhere. If you are in a controlled environment, with a CFL-lit monitor (2410) and a GeForce card... that's a puzzle. You don't have an abundance of blue light, so I'd guess it's overuse.
Or, in what was most assuredly the case for me a couple years ago, it could be the work environment. I moved from an office with lighting I could tolerate and monitors that worked for me to an office with harsh full-spectrum overhead fluorescents. They gave me such intense eyestrain that it took literally days to recover at home. My employer was good enough to let me work in a closed office with incandescent bulbs and my symptoms slowly improved. At this point, we've moved to a new office with equally terrible lighting, but I remove the light over my desk and wear a visor at all times. It helps a lot but isn't perfect.
You might want to consider that, because it sounds like your home environment and your home/work hardware are both just fine...
- Edited
Two weeks ago I worked with two ccfl monitors during a business trip: dell u2410 and dell u2711. With u2410 I totally got a headache and eyes irritation at any level of brightness/contrast (flux doesn't help me). As I understand the main problem of u2410 is PWM and it seems that I am very sensitive to it. There was another option with u2711 so I also tried it. With default settings on u2711 I don't feel any problems with eyes. I was working on it during two weeks.
System configuration: integrated graphics of intel i7 second generation + Ubuntu 14.04
15 days later
- Edited
Hi MagnuM ,
I have a very similar symptoms I think. I will share here as I've been struggling with these for more than 4 months now, and this could help others:
I started a programming job in a startup end of 2015, and worked on my Samsung laptop 7/7 for 3 months non-stop. Then around Christmas 2015 I felt so bad in my head and realized that I couldn't look at a computer screen (or my phone screen) without feeling very dizzy and totally unable to focus.
I left my job in the startup the next day (it was quite a lot of stress actually) and went to hospital to do a brain scan (CT), nothing! Then I did eyes check, they diagnosed a little astigmatism (0.25). Then I checked the ears (with a sound test) and they said that I probably had a vestibular neuronitis (maybe stimulated by stress, but this is said to be "multi-factorial").
So I tried to re-organize my life to make it healthier and more balanced (as that's the main advice from doctors when having vestibular neuronitis). I tried to completely stop looking at the screen, also started regular sport, and did more social activities (friends, etc).
I was getting better, and after 1 month away from the keyboard, I started a new job. Programmer again, but only 5/7. As soon as I started to look at the computer screen again, the symptoms came back:
- very difficult to focus when looking at the computer screen (after 15mn).
- NEW SYMPTOM : light sensitivity from the big window on my right. I had to cover my eyes with my right hand!
- NEW SYMPTOM : sound sensitivity, and for a few days, skin sensitivity.
I thought I would have to quit after the first week, as I couldn't do any reasoning in front of my computer (and coding is mostly about logic and reasoning !!!). But I didn't quit, here is what I did:
- Continued to do sport, have social life,
- Stay away from computer/phone in the evening and in the weekends,
- I also bought a Kindle to look at programming books, as I could perfectly read on a Kindle (no headaches or uncomfortable feelings).
- Turned to almost minimum my laptop screen brightness (even though I read that with low brightness, the backlit will flicker at lower frequency...go figure...).
and little by little, after 3 weeks (beginning of march), I could start to feel better 2 or 3 days per week. Often it worsened at the end of the week (which was really depressing, as I often thought I was done with the problem).
So here I am！ It's been two months in this new job, and I'm much better for sure if I compare with 4 months ago when all started. BUT, if I compare with the normal me 8 months ago, I'm still handicapped, no doubts.
I think I have a neuronitis stimulated by computer screen (so I think it's the combination of two problems).
I wish I will recover much better, and here is what I plan for the future:
- I'm gonna buy a non-PWM Dell monitor U2515H and see If any improvements (flicker free, and bigger size to display bigger font).
- If no improvements, I'm gonna see an ophthalmologist and see if there is any exercise I could do with my eyes to release the problem (I'm not sure if there is smth to release actually).
- If no improvements, I will try wearing glasses (to correct my astigmatism, and also to filter blue light etc).
- If no improvements...well, I don't know, but I'll continue to fight, to get my vision and brain back.
I'll give some updates here. Thank you all for sharing your experience.
10 days later
- Edited
hey everybody. As I already explainend in many different threads here, I suffer from the same things as you and also have nearly the same same history MagnuM
Long Story Short:
I got New Glasses with perfect corrigation of complicated astigmatism two months ago and I'm still not really used to it. It's always a bit stressful for my eyes. However they were really expensive. I furhter try them out, but binocular vision has improved pretty much.
New work with Nvidia Quadro and two DellU2412M. Not as bad as Intel graphics, but still strainy for the eyes and its getting worse every day. Tried already out f.lux und different settings.
Are there any news about dithering?
Have somebody of you tried out 4k Screen? This is the last thing I haven't tried out and different people told, that they were strainfree with new apple macbooks and retina display.
Finally how do you feel when you are going home from work? In my case nature and the "reality" seems to have to less contrast. Sounds weird and is diffucult to explain.
is your mentionend benq full hd or 4k?
5 days later
- Edited
OF course it depends on the person in question, but my opinion is that people are putting too much faith in the flicker free / non dithering solutions. While I totally get that may be a solution for some, I'm pretty sure the main driver for most of the problems is the blueish led light.
I too have a little bit of astigmatism, and as much as I try, for how long I try the end result is the same: although I do see slightly better, they give me nausea, even if I insist on using them several weeks in a row. I have problems with any kinds of glasses, even with standard sunglasses -- they give me nausea and eye strain. I'm light sensitive in general, as I suspect a lot of people that here complain about led lights must be. It's just that computer displays are so much aggressive in the eyes than general light.
I for some reason don't like kindles, I think that the font is not very clear and that gives me headaches but I remain unsure. On a similar note, I had trouble with Ubuntu's font until I shut anti aliasing off.
__528491__ Do I recognize you from Reddit?
- Edited
__528491__ Dithering, PWM, subpixel rendering.. I think many focus on these things because they're under our control, and while eliminating issues with them may not solve the problem, sometimes it can make enough of a difference to save someone's career.
Fancy lens tints are certainly evolving quickly. There is some hope there.
As for glasses, I also can not stand any lenses that have a cylindrical correction (for astigmatism). I can use reading glasses (spherical correction) without discomfort and they helped me a lot. Corrections for minor astigmatism are really just to make things "sharp" and everything looks better while using it, but it doesn't really improve legibility a whole lot.