diop Yes...the constant misdiagnoses is entirely frustrating. I am sorry you also dealt with that. I agree that every diagnosis I have received is BS. I have not been able to explore a ton of older tech. My laptop, though, is from 2001 and hasn't had an update in years and bothers my eyes now. I do not know if there is a cut off point. I have not tried an old machine with a new monitor and I haven't tried an old monitor or TV. It's on my list of things to do. I am not as tech savvy as a lot of you and trying all these tech solutions are expensive and slightly confusing (not that doctors' appointments and MRIs are not). I agree that it is unfortunate to think of resorting to medications in our situation but to wait for more research...that could take YEARS. While the subjectivity and misdiagnoses of medicine is highly frustrating, I have to think that there is something wrong with us because WE have this problem and other people don't. Why us? Yes, there has got to be a tech solution but there is something in OUR brains or something wrong with OUR eyes to be the only ones terribly and negatively affected by the new tech. I want to continue trying both medical and tech solutions...but I am at risk of ruining my career (I am sure others are dealing with the same) so I feel I have to try things even if they are not ideal or fair. It's possible I won't find a medication to help but if I do find one that helps, I will take it for a while at least (assuming the side effects are bearable). I will do it sadly but this whole situation is heartbreaking anyway.

JTL Should be able to get an "MRI screen" to induce eyestrain with enough work and collect data using it 😃

This would be awesome! If I can work up the courage and set aside my pride at work, I may ask for one.

AGI The fact that none of the 10 doctors I talked to about my eyestrain knew about dithering suggests me that we have not made enough noise.

While I have received layman's explanation of dithering, it is hard for me to try to explain this potential issue to a physician because it's hard for me to understand it entirely. So, in my case, they certainly aren't listening to me. I feel dismissed by every doctor I have spoken to.

AGI But I would like to carry out some serious test in the presence of an offending stimulus, not just a mere EEG.

Exactly. This makes logical sense to me but no one listens. If I am willing to go into debt for these tests, just f***ing order one for me! I don't know that a non-research physician will be interested in exploring this, though. They want to kick you out after your 30 minute allotted appointment time.

AGI sometimes tell myself I am an hero to reach the end of the day. Just need some motivation to accept my low performance...

I relate to this a lot.

AGI How do you handle modern lighting?

I don't seem to be bothered...to my knowledge, at least. My eye strain is always the worst at work but it does not matter if I keep the lights off in my office or not. Going out and about to stores and restaurants doesn't bother me. The lights at my veterinarian's office bother me but I believe that is because I see a visible flicker. Otherwise, I don't notice lighting bothering me much. I am sorry you have both the screen and the lighting issue. A double-whammy. 🙁 I suppose I could test buying an LED bulb and putting it in my bedroom just to be sure.

                laur5446 I don't seem to be bothered

                I never had big issues until I got this job two years ago. I am not bothered by fluorescent light in general, like at supermarkets. I even have fluorescent lamps in the living room and in the kitchen of the apartment I rent. No problem.
                It sounds a paradox, the lamps that kill me are ultra-modern ones, like technology of the last 2-3 years. Fancy color temperatures supposed to relax the eyes. They must be kidding me. I had opened a post about it. I noticed the lights which give me troubles run at low power. Same bulbs running at high power are okay. So it must be something related to the low power and I do not think it is a matter of low illuminance, it is probably flicker to some extent. But no one cares, doctors or technical people I talked to, and I have not been able to assess the cause by myself.
                I reached a point that even 2 weeks off work do not allow me to recover fully.

                laur5446 I don't know that a non-research physician will be interested in exploring this

                I agree. The only way is to involve researchers, most "standard" doctors won't show interest. I promised myself to shoot emails to authors of scientific articles on the subject but I am so behind with my work and my life because of this problem, that I hardly find time to get the minimum done. It is a vicious loop because I need to work longer hours under those conditions in the office or at home to recover from the poor performance during the day. I am exhausted, unhappy and anxious because this time I really do not see the way out.

                      AGI I reached a point that even 2 weeks off work do not allow me to recover fully.

                      That is horrible. I am sorry to hear that. I listened to that podcast someone posted not too long ago about a lady with a serious light sensitivity. It is crazy that this technology (lighting and computers) are supposed to be better but they are actually making people sick.

                      AGI I promised myself to shoot emails to authors of scientific articles on the subject but I am so behind with my work and my life because of this problem, that I hardly find time to get the minimum done.

                      There are several studies being done on the trigeminal nerve and the study information includes email addresses (probably not the scientist's email but maybe an assistant) and I considered doing the same. I don't think I have trigeminal neuralgia as I described in the original post but maybe one of them would be interested in the effects of tech on the trigeminal nerve or any other part of the brain...wishful thinking, possibly. I think I will send emails, though, when I can work up the courage to be on the computer willingly for hours doing so. If you have any saved articles, you could send them to me and I could send the authors whatever email I draft up. I worry I won't be able to articulate the tech aspect of all of this very well but I could probably pull enough info from this forum to come up with something that makes sense. But still...so much computer time. I really do relate. I am extremely fortunate to have a boss that tries to find things for me to do outside of the office but the majority of my work is done on the computer. My productivity has declined significantly and I worry about finding a new job in the future. And, like most of us, my personal life has suffered, too. I feel depressed and anxious a lot...I believe you have been dealing with this longer than I have (next month marks one year). Let me know if I can help with the email part because I don't want to give up yet.

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                            LED lighting in the workplaces kills me. The absolute worst. Restaurants too. Worse than screens

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                              laur5446 While I have received layman's explanation of dithering, it is hard for me to try to explain this potential issue to a physician because it's hard for me to understand it entirely. So, in my case, they certainly aren't listening to me. I feel dismissed by every doctor I have spoken to.

                              My understanding of it is this.... Let's say my entire screen was one pixel. I want to view a certain shade of red, but my computer monitor/graphics card can't display this natively. With dithering, the entire screen (equivalent to one pixel) displays the closest color it can below the shade I want to see and then the closest above it in an extremely fast succession. I will then 'perceive' the color in-between these values (the correct shade) but it's not actually there. In many ways it's like PWM but instead of on/off at a certain frequency to simulate a brightness level it's changing color values instead.

                              TL;DR - PWM is flicker and Dithering is flicker.

                                degen LED lighting in the workplaces kills me. The absolute worst. Restaurants too. Worse than screens

                                Oh really, I thought I was the only one. Sorry about your situation.
                                My seat is at a window under the intersection of a vertical line of LED lamps and an horizontal line of fluorescent lights. 2 in 1, what a jackpot. In addition I also have reflections from outdoor light. In fact paradoxically at night it is slightly better.
                                Now when everyone is gone I move with my laptop to a conference room where there are arrays of mini-LEDs. Those feel so much better than the big lamps in my office. I need to find out why. I need to accurately measure the flicker.
                                By the way, I suffer from two type of disturbs. One is more physical, like eyestrain, neck and face muscle tension and eyelid twitching. The other is very poor concentration and extreme fatigue. When I go home I feel exhausted as if I have been run over by a truck. When I get in in the morning, outdoors is typically beautiful and sunny. I enter the office and immediately feel like a guinea pig in a hospital laboratory. The difference to natural light is huge. I really do not know how they can call that fluorescent bulb "natural white". It is insulting.

                                diop There are of course big organisations like Lightaware which are trying to get to the bottom of this issue and persuade manufacturers to produce better LED lighting.

                                Yeah, I did speak with them. The problem is we do not have a crystal clear evidence of what is wrong in the lamps and the displays. And according to all the doctors I visited I am healthy. Basically, I am making my symptoms up.

                                laur5446 Let me know if I can help with the email part because I don't want to give up yet.

                                Thanks, let's try to work on this. I downloaded articles probably a year ago but never made a move as I need to catch up with so many things...

                                        AGI I need to find out why

                                        Probably comes down to how they are powered. If the LEDs are powered by a standard light bulb fitting that will take any type of bulb they will flicker. But, if they are driven by some purpose built LED power supply, with a proper AC-DC rectifier, they will not flicker.

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                                            3 months later

                                            I know not everyone is keen on seeking medical treatment here, but I thought I would add an update to my (lack of) progress.

                                            I have been taking Gabapentin for a couple of months now. It does nothing to help my eyes but it seems to have had a positive effect on my anxiety (although it's possible my lack of anxiety has been due to being stuck at home with nothing to do during quarantine--I have been furloughed and have been able to take a break from computers).

                                            I had the neuro-ophthalmologist send a referral to the Mayo Clinic. Sadly, and weirdly, they called me and said their neurology, ophthalmology, and pain specialists all felt they could not help me. It's possible the referral was written poorly, but I thought it was very sad that this very highly regarded medical facility declined to try to help me.

                                            My primary doctor has not found a neurologist for me to see and states I have to wait until this COVID situation has died down.

                                            I still want to see a neurologist but I guess I have to wait...my next steps are to email some researchers and possibly see a vision therapist like Martin has seen--although I have been told I don't have CI anymore. I might try Neurolenses but I have a feeling they won't help.

                                            I have a new laptop that hurts and my phone still hurts--I tend to choose to ignore this problem when I can because endlessly trying to find solutions is so stressful, costly, and makes me feel hopeless.

                                            Anyway, if anything else worth noting arises in my search for solutions, I will add another update.

                                              Hi, I've got same problems as you (with light and screens), but recently I manage to made a little discovery which maybe can help us somehow. My problems starts about 4 years ago, and I tried many things which didn't help me at all. Recently, while surfing the net, I came across "ayurvedic glasses", you can find over the net that they're able to fix/cure your vision problems. They're cheap, so I've decided to give them a try and ordered a pair. It stated that due to little pinholes, light entering the lenses straight, unlike ordinary glasses (or without glasses). You can't just wear them and forget about everything, you have to get used to them, starting from 5 minutes a day, and increase this time by another 5 minutes each day. I tried to use them in front of one of the screens which cause me symptoms even after about 10 minutes, and what I've realized, after couple of days, when I was wearing them for 30 minutes, none of the symptoms occurred at all! Unfortunately, there is one downside, after wearing them for few days I've noticed that my eyesight was getting a bit worse, so I stoped in fear of any eye damage that them can cause me...

                                              All in all, my discovery was that, I didn't experience any symptoms when wearing glasses! Maybe it will help us deal with the problem somehow. Please tell me what you think about this. Maybe someone tried those glasses before? Thanks!

                                                This was pretty crazy to read, it almost exactly mirrors my path over the past 15+ years.

                                                The sad truth we all need to accept is that doctors do not know what is wrong here. I've seen over 20 specialists in 8 states and counting, and gotten the same brick wall every time.

                                                Basically, after years and years of searching and traveling, it boils basically down to this:

                                                It is a brain problem, not an eye problem.
                                                It MAY involve the trigeminal nerve, specifically the supraorbital branch that pierces the currogator muscle near your eyes.
                                                It can be a screen issue or an issue with what drives the screen (good screens can go bad when switched to different sources)
                                                There seems to be a likely sinus connection
                                                And thats about it.

                                                I've tried every medication under the sun, had more MRI's and brain scans than you can imagine, travelled all over the US and seen the top specialists, been to countless quacks, cooks, and snake oil salesman, did vision therapy till the cows came home, and none of it was a cure. The only positive things I found was vision therapy helped with one every specific case (credit card terminals in stores), a beta blocker seems to increase my resistance to CFL lighting, and migralenses help a little bit.

                                                My current nuerologist, who I eventually settled on because he was the first one to level with me and not feed me bull, said that problems like these are not uncommon, they tend to go away as we age. And I have experiences that, I started getting this issues in my late 20's, I am 45 now and there are things that bothered me before that no longer do (CFL's used to be my biggest trigger, now they are almost harmless, although you rarely come across them anymore, and LED headlights on cars used to be awfulo and they have gotten much more tolerable over time). He said based on his observaitons these tend to age away around your mid 50's to 60's. Not a great diagnosis bu it's something at least

                                                  bisk89 Recently, while surfing the net, I came across "ayurvedic glasses", you can find over the net that they're able to fix/cure your vision problems. They're cheap, so I've decided to give them a try and ordered a pair. It stated that due to little pinholes, light entering the lenses straight, unlike ordinary glasses (or without glasses).

                                                  If they help you then great, but no offense, those look like total bunk.

                                                  laur5446 I had the neuro-ophthalmologist send a referral to the Mayo Clinic. Sadly, and weirdly, they called me and said their neurology, ophthalmology, and pain specialists all felt they could not help me. It's possible the referral was written poorly, but I thought it was very sad that this very highly regarded medical facility declined to try to help me.

                                                  They were just being honest. Our condition is so rare it is not studied, or known, and there is no treatment or even a name. You learn after a while that despite all the "oohs" and "ahhs" around modern day medicine, it is extremely focused on the most common ailments people have, As soon as you stray off the beaten track into somehting more exotic, you very quickly reach the limits of medical science and are left in the cold.

                                                        ensete If they help you then great, but no offense, those look like total bunk.

                                                        You missed the point...

                                                          ensete The sad truth we all need to accept is that doctors do not know what is wrong here.

                                                          So true.

                                                          ensete a beta blocker seems to increase my resistance to CFL lighting

                                                          Could you please say which beta blocker?

                                                                AGI Could you please say which beta blocker?

                                                                Propranalol. I started at 60mg, then went up to 80, 120, and settled at 160. I have been at that dose for about 10 years now. It's not a cure by any means, but as I tell my nuero, it's better with it than without it. And as an bonus I have great blood pressure 🙂

                                                                    ensete Propranalol.

                                                                    It seems to be an anxiolytic, does not it? Any side effect?
                                                                    Are you taking it specifically to cope with eyestrain or for blood pressure-related reasons?
                                                                    Thanks.

                                                                        AGI It seems to be an anxiolytic, does not it?

                                                                        No, it's a beta blocker. It's used primarily to treat high blood pressure. It is also indicated to help with migraines. I was prescribed it to help with the migraines

                                                                        Any side effect?

                                                                        When you first start using it, or whenever your dosage increases, for about a 3 days you feel awful. You have zero energy, your arms and legs feel like they are made of concrete, you are sluggish. It sucks. After you adjust however you feel perfectly normal. Your heart rate is overall lower and you have a few less bpm and will get winded a little faster than normal. It is also dangerous to skip a dose since your heart adjusts to running on 1/2 the adrenaline so going back to normal is risky.

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                                                                          @ensete Thanks.

                                                                          Are you "intolerant" also to LED and fluorescent lighting?
                                                                          If I remember correctly, you wrote somewhere that your problem is color rather flicker or dithering. How did you find it out and what does that mean? Are there colors that your brain cannot process?
                                                                          Once I was tested for Irlen syndrome but I could not tell a difference between the various lenses I was offered to try. I mean, within the couple of minutes that the test took, it was impossible to make an assessment. Have you tried glasses that filter out a specific range of the visible spectrum? And have you ever experienced photophobia from intense sunlight?
                                                                          I am a sinusitis sufferer too by the way. And AC can be as bad to my body as offensive lighting.

                                                                            AGI

                                                                            Are you "intolerant" also to LED and fluorescent lighting?

                                                                            That depends on what and when. Here's my history:

                                                                            When I first encountered symptoms, it was a little over 15 years ago, and I was triggered by CFL bulbs. I should mention that standard tube fluorescent did not cause me any issues, just the compact ones. That sent me down our long journey. At the time LED lights were not mainstream, there was no such thing as LED light bulbs, it was still an incandescent word.

                                                                            As the years progressed, incandescents started to get more and more replaced by CFL's. This led to the question that to this day I have not answered, was I born with this condition and just never noticed because CFL's weren't invented until later in my life, or was it something I developed? Probably never figure that out.

                                                                            Anyway, as the years went on and my misery progressed and as I started realzing how rare my condition was since doctor after doctor could not help me, I started on migraine treatments. Most did nothing, but propranalol helped a little. A few years after that I was tested for Irlen syndrome and "daignosed" (as much as one can be diagnosed for a syndrome) and when through the lens test procedure and ultimately get a pair of lenses made that 100% cured my condition. For 3 months. After that, they stopped working, and despite multiple attempts at re testing and hundreds and hundreds of dollars on new lenses getting made, I was never able to find a lens color that made any help at all, so I abandoned that road.

                                                                            It was around this time LED's started coming out, and CFL's started waning in popularity. I immediately noticed that LED's were much more hit or miss, some LED's were instantly pain inducing, but some LED's cause me no issues whatsoever.

                                                                            Around that time I started down my nuerofeedback and biofeedback treatment, and this is also when smartphones started coming onto the market and my issues with those screens started happening. Much like LED's some were fine, most were terrible. The nuero and bio helped a little more in my CFL issue but not with the LED issue. At this point in my life, CFL's don't bother me much at all, not that it matters since they have basically vanished from the face of the earth since LED's supplanted them.

                                                                            For LED's, some things have gotten better over time, when car headlights switched to LED's it was a REAL problem. But nowadays LED highlights rarely cause me any issues at all. After one of my sinus surgeries I was put on a daily anti allergy medication and this helped with the LED sensitivity. It might be the medication, it might be the surgery, it might not be anything I did, maybe the LED's just got better or something changed in my brain that made it not as bad.

                                                                            The primary irritant at that point became screens since everything in the world was moving to digital displays, phones, tablets, thermostats, credit card readers, cars, you name it. And most of them caused severe eye strain. I was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency and went through vision training, which 100% cured me for credit card terminals only. No improvement on any other digital screen. Explain that one.

                                                                            The color connection came up when I found I was able to take a screen that was arming me (PC screen) and completely eliminate the issue by loading the correct ICC profile. Like 100% eliminate the issue. And certain colors of web pages (specifically a very light gray, #FEFEFE is the hex code) will instantly trigger a migraine. Lucky for me Microsoft picked this color as it's new toolbar background color in Office 2016 with no way to change it. Thanks Microsoft. Also lots of bright white can cause me issues, which was awesome when Google decided that Android should no longer be based on dark tones by instead be a retina searing white.

                                                                            So thats roughly where I am today. I've seen countless doctors in 7 states and have learned no one out there has "the answer" we are looking for, and just hoping my neurologist is correct in telling me the most likely outcome is that I will age out of this around my mid to late 50's to 60's.

                                                                            I am a sinusitis sufferer too by the way. And AC can be as bad to my body as offensive lighting.

                                                                            This is just something I have observed. Nearly everyone I have met with our condition also seems to have severe sinusitis. I have had 3 sinus surgeries myself. I met one person who had identical visual symptoms to me, and had unrelated surgery on his pallete, and to his surprise his lighting and screen issues were 100% cured after the surgery. My pet theory is that the nerves responsible for the pain we get run through the sinus and pallette area (it is a heavily enervated area) and reducing inflammation there may block the brain signals causing our issue? Who knows.

                                                                            I also know that for some people stuff like flicker, dithering, and PWN can cause issues, but for me they are not. Which indicates different triggers are affecting different people and then producing the same symptoms, or triggers are getting misidentified and leading us down rabbit holes. At this point in my life I have abandoned any hope for a "cure", and have adopted a strategy of leading as pain free a life as I can: when I find a setup for a computer, TV, phone, whatever, that causes me no pain, I NEVER change it unless I absolutely have no choice. Yes that means I have a 7 year old smartphone and a 8 year old TV and a 12 year old car with no digital displays and I will never use Windows 10, and if anything breaks and I have to find a replacement its ruins my life for a while, but thats just the hand I got dealt. There is no feature, benefit, new capability, performance increase, or anything that is worth being in pain for. Just my philosophy

                                                                            And AC can be as bad to my body as offensive lighting.

                                                                            I had to install an $18,000 mini split system to re mediate my issues with HVAC.

                                                                            That was a lot of typing.

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                                                                              Thanks a lot for all the details. I feel you.

                                                                              Out of curiosity, why do you think the AC affects us so much? You seem to have solved that problem. What was your finding?

                                                                              About vision therapy, could you briefly summarize the type of exercises you carried out? Were more of the Brock String type or cards/colors etc etc?

                                                                              Do you also have vertigo / lack of balance issues? I ran some balance tests with closed eyes and was ver worried about my poor performance. Recently, I also discovered that I suffer from seasickness. Furthermore, a few months ago I started swimming in the sea and I had a few episodes in which the sea was moderately rough. When I got out of the water, I fell to the ground. I tried to stand up and fell again. I had to wait minutes to recover. My head was not spinning though. My whole body was affected. The first time I thought it was from excessive efforts and low blood pressure, but it happened again and I am now sure it was caused by the waves.
                                                                              I suspect that all those episodes are related to a complex disturb which manifests itself also at work under certain overhead lights. Indeed in the office I feel fatigued, I lack concentration and somehow my balance and consciousness of what surrounds me are impaired.

                                                                              dev