Just an update for those interested. I can't really take Adderall because of the side effects and my doctor in my new city doesn't want to prescribe it. She referred me to a neurologist and I had two EEGs. One normal EEG and the other I did while looking at screens that hurt my eyes. Both results were normal. Luckily, the neurologist does believe me but admits to not knowing what the problem could be. He said he'd like to attack the problem as if it were a migraine issue just to see if migraine medications work.

I have been taking Depakote since February 8, 2022…I quickly worked up to 1000mg starting on February 14th and have been on this dose since. There are times where I feel like maybe it is helping but times where my eyes hurt just as much as usual. So I do have the occasional better day but I am not sure if it's due to the medication or not. I was on vacation in another country and the pain was less but I think it was because I was so busy and distracted and not using screens much. I have zero side effects from the Depakote but I don't think it's worth continuing to take if it doesn't alleviate my symptoms. I guess the true test will be if I come off of it and my eyes hurt 10x worse! I have a follow up appointment with the neurologist next week and will discuss next steps and will likely try a new medication.

I now live in an area full of research hospitals and am considering making an appointment with a research based neuro-ophthalmologist or neurologist…expectations would be low but might as well try. And I might look around for vision therapists. Everything just costs so much.

Long story short, still looking for help. 🙁

I will post again when I have another worthwhile update.

    6 days later

    Please post of you find anyone worthwhile. I've seen over 25 specialists across 7 states in ever field (optometrists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, nuero ophthalmologists , plus all manner of snake oil "vision specialists") and other than being very good at seperating me from large sums of money, none have been worth a damn in actually helping

    ryans What is the difference between a neuro-ophthalmologist and a neuro-optometrist?

      7 months later

      @laur5446 How are things going for you? I briefly read your story. As I understand, you still have symptoms of eye pain when looing at LCDs and was diagnosed with convergence insuffuciency some time ago. Did you by any chance also have the feeling of image misalignment? Like two images were out of sync? This is something I have. I think I might have something similar with LCDscreens as you. Whenever I look at them with higher brightness, I get stabbing/burning pain in both eyes. That's something I have for about 2 years already, But 3 months ago I also suddenly got dizzy and felt like something was wrong with my brain/vision. Saw plenty of specialists, multiple eye docs, neurologists and ENTs, did MRI and CT. It turned out I had asymptomatic sinusitis and large, 3cm cyst in my sinus. Cleaned that with FESS and Caldwell-Luc surgery 2 weeks ago, but eye symptoms are still there. Now I'm trying to tackle the problem as if sinusitis wasn't the cause. Pre op, about 1 month ago I was already diagnosed with convergence insufficiency by two docs and will have another appointements next week. I will probably start vision therapy very soon, but after reading your story I'm now afraid it won't help. This condition succesfully deprived me of being useful to society and looking for answers is all I do now.

        Very interesting, that a lot of guys from here have sinusitis. I ill with sinusitis too. I have curve nasal septum, and doctors say that i should be surgeried(septoplasty), to fix it(make it flat) and it should fix my sinusitis. But very interesting - does sinusit fixing help somebody to win eyestrain?

          mazury Hello! Things are about the same for me. I took a break from seeking treatment/help as I have other things going on (travel/unrelated surgery/etc). The latest updates are that the neurologist had put me on Depakote in Feb 2022. I took 1000mg for 3 months…it made my hair fall out and did not help my eyes so I quit taking it. He then put me on 60mg Propranolol ER in late June 2022. I only took it for a month before quitting--I'd ideally liked to have given it 3 months but I was worried about weight gain so I quit taking it. I have been preparing for an unrelated surgery so I have not been back to the neurologist to discuss other medication trial options. It seems pointless but I thought I should try everything I can, right?

          I am not sure what I will do next…maybe seek the other type of vision therapy I didn't do…but I was told I no longer have convergence insufficiency by the last doctor who sold me their vision therapy. Maybe I will find a research based neuro-ophthalmologist. In the meantime, I just do the best I can every day to deal with this awful condition.

          Re: the feeling of misalignment…I don't usually experience that unless I actively try to see double. Very interesting you were diagnosed with sinusitis! I think they would have seen that in my MRIs if I had that (I hope so, at least). I hate that the surgery did not resolve your eye symptoms. 🙁

          I relate to your despair. It's so stressful. I think it's worth trying the vision therapy--I may do it in the future, as well (apparently there is more than one type and I only did one). Even if it doesn't help, I will be able to say I tried. It's worth trying everything we can. I have noticed that while we all have similar symptoms, we also all have difference in symptoms…some people have found relief in things that haven't helped me when I tried them. So maybe the therapy will help you. You won't know unless you try.

          Also, for me, the more I obsess over finding a solution, the more anxiety and distress I experience. I have to limit my time on this site for that reason. I will update my post again as soon as I try something new! 🙂 I would love to hear how vision therapy is for you if you try it.

            arturpanteleev

            I too have a curved nasal something and I was also told to get a surgery for it. It might be linked with internal skull pressure. I once described my symptoms on another unrelated forum and one guy said he experienced the same when he had covid, linking sinusitis with eye strain.

                Neuromancer there are many guys with this problem and eysstrain. I think i will try this surgery next year. BUt of cause there is no any guaranties. cause i had a conversation with a man on another forum, and he told me that surgery helped him to improove breathing, but gave nothing to is eyes problem (

                  a month later

                  ensete Quite depressing answer. Considering the fact that my condition makes my life totally miserable. I can't imagine having this for the rest of my life, I would have to literally become a different person and reprogram myself. You had CI. Did vision therapy fixed that 100%, that is did they re-tested your CI after therapy and you improved your fusional ranges and other indicators to normal values?

                    4 months later

                    Hello. I have a bizarre update since December when I last posted.

                    As I mentioned, trying to find help gives me so much anxiety that I just try to manage my symptoms emotionally on my own so I have not sought anymore help and haven't returned to the neurologist after discontinuing Depakote & Propranolol.

                    This all seems unrelated but I went to the dermatologist and started oral Minoxidil (1.25mg) for hair loss in January 2023. Around March 11th (ish), I noticed my eyes hurting less. Today, this is still consistent…my eyes definitely still hurt and are strained from electronic use BUT it's noticeably less. On a bad day, my eye strain could be a 8 or 9 out of 10. Lately, it's been more like a 3 or 4!

                    NOTHING ELSE HAS CHANGED other than starting the oral minoxidil. So…it's either a fluke or it's the medication. Minoxidil is a vasodilator that used to be used as an antihypertensive that is used in low doses to help hair growth. I don't know how or why a vasodilator would help.

                    Again, I still have pain but it's less and I am grateful for that. Whatever the cause--medication or fluke--I will take it. It makes me nervous though that if/when the pain comes back to it's normal levels, it will be hard to handle emotionally.

                    This correlation seems weird but I thought I would put it on here since it's the only thing that has changed for me.

                    Edit: I want to add that, as usual, if I sleep poorly, the lack of sleep will still makes my eyes hurt worse during the day. But still less than before the medication (or fluke).

                      I think our problem is screen backlight. Baklight direct led most suffering for eye. Edge lit is moderate pain. I never use oled.

                      I use amoled phone rog phone 2 for 3 years and so far zero eyestrain.

                      Steam deck 64 gb is also zero eye strain. I have use for 6 months

                        arturpanteleev For me episodes of sinusitis have strongly decreased in number and intensity over the past five years, whereas my eyestrain has got worse, likely because of the increase of triggers, i.e., more "aggressive" software/OSs and more LED lights.
                        I have only heard bad things about sinus surgery from people who undertook it. Never been in my bucket list even when I was sick every second day especially in summer because of air conditioning.
                        I did observe a mild correlation between sinus inflammation and eyestrain in the past, but nothing conclusive IMHO. Sinusitis would in general weaken my body under multiple aspects. I never figured out why air conditioning is a killer for me. I just avoid it like hell.

                        • mike replied to this.

                            ludwig Many users here have setups that are pain free, and then can become painful based on software/Operating system changes, with identical hardware

                            I am convinced the issue is software related, not hardware

                            I concur with the sinus connection it seems to be the most common thing folks with our condition have in common, medical wise. The only person I have ever met that was cured of his eye issues was cured by unrelated palette surgery on the roof on his mouth. My theory is the nerves running through that area are somehow linked to the vision processing center of the brain where we are having issues.

                            • AGI likes this.

                              I agree. For example the Steam Deck, with the game mode Wayland compositor it's fine on the internal and external display, but if you switch to kde using its own compositor in X11 then the image doesn't seem as stable and is straining. Guess we'll see what changes in the next version of the OS when it comes since it'll be a kernel, plasma and driver update.

                              arturpanteleev Interesting that we both have problems with sinuses and have patched our way though the eyestrain problems.

                              AGI Have you tried some medicine for sinus? I took Rinexin for some years, it took away the worst eye strain.

                              Can the problem be that we have to little space around our sinuses, and when our eye muscles get overworked we get the eyestrain? Just a thought.

                                    mike No idea. I slept in the cold for a couple of nights and woke up two days ago with pain in my throat only on the left side, like a swollen lymph node, my left ear and my left eye. It hasn't subsided yet. But that is a sort of bonus on top of the normal eyestrain 🤣. My left eye feels more fatigued and it is more prone to turn in than normally, though. No mucus, no cold symptoms, it is more like inflammation but yeah, it's pretty much along a line from the throat to the eye, on the left only, and my left eye is the weaker one in general. Coincidence?

                                        mike yes it is true.

                                        I did a survey on Russian-speaking forums with eyestrain people and found a lot of these ones(with sinusitis). But a few of them had successful surgery and managed their sinusitis problem and didn't get any improvements with eyestrain

                                            dev