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

                          laur5446 So you suggest that the issue for you could be blood pressure/hypertension related?

                            AGI It's not impossible it's allergies.. right now is prime tree pollen season and grass pollen is starting up soon.

                            • AGI replied to this.
                                9 days later

                                EyeDiscomfortCertificate No it is 4dpa you can google this topic by name "Второй смартфон - болят глаза. Помогите с выбором" - now there is a lot of bullshit there, but in the 2021-2022 there was a lot of interesting messages, that could be interesting

                                  a month later

                                  ryans Where on Reddit did you see people discussing a chiropractor to get relief? I'd like to read more about this.

                                      7 days later

                                      ocean10 There is a Reddit chat I can invite you to. However I would caution a chiropractor as I've heard them cause permanent paralysis. Physical therapy is evidence based and perhaps something to try.

                                          ryans Yeah, I hear you about chiropractors. But I'd be really curious if there was some sort of "physical" way to help this.

                                          Is this on the r/PWM_Sensitive sub?

                                            8 months later

                                            ryans I have a physical therapist I'm seeing for back problems who has some theories on this. She was interested in reading about people who had relief from chiropractic care. Do you remember where you saw that on Reddit?

                                                ocean10 It's a Reddit chat so not publicly accessible. Feel free to send me a private message on here with your Reddit username and I can add you, if you like.

                                                  dev