Hello, I am Tommy. I've never had eye problems until the end of this past April. I played a lot of PC at the time. Nothing unusual since I've been staring at screens my whole life. I had been using this PC and specific monitor tons this past Christmas break and my eyes were never hurting then. Like I would play Modern Warfare tons and I never had any problems. But then this past April one day my eyes just started hurting really bad. Since this was unusual I thought maybe it was an eye infection at first. I had a clinic appointment and got something for an eye infection. A week and a half later and it still wasn't gone so I went to an eye doctor who told me it was because of dry eyes. He even did a retinal scan and showed me the back of my eyeballs and found nothing wrong with them. So I used Systane drops and while my eyes were no longer dry they were still hurting horribly. I started taking eye care vitamins and those haven't changed much. I eat healthy and get plenty of sleep so it's not due to bad health habits. My Asus monitor makes my eyes hurt, most TV's make my eyes hurt and for a while I could use a Nintendo Switch but eventually that made my eyes hurt. I can use my phone all day long with no problems. It's a Galaxy S8+. On my honeymoon a week ago I was able to watch Hobbit movies for like 7 hours with my wife on a TV that was about 12 feet away. This was the only screen time I had for that week so my eyes had plenty of time to heal from any problems they had. Before all this eye pain I signed a 2 year contract to work in my college's business office. This job requires me to work at a computer all day. I was dreading starting work this past week because of the eye pain I've dealt with for about 2 months. The first 3 days weren't so bad. My eyes hurt but I could deal with it. I have a pair of Gunnar Intercept's and I still use Systane Ultra eye drops for dryness. I have the brightness turned down on the monitor and the blue light filter turned on. I even sit as far as possible from the monitor and have it pushed against the wall. The pain is mostly in my right eye. I had several eye exams and both times was 20/20. My right eye is slightly weaker than my left so I assume this is why it hurts more. I have never had eye pain before what started 2 months ago. My job requires me stare at a monitor all day. I don't know what to do. I could quit and find a construction job or something. Idk. It hurts pretty bad though.
Introduction
Tommy98 You can use a phone all day so LED flicker isn't your problem. Unless it's just the flicker frequency of the S8 is within your tolerance. I'm a big gamer and I play daily but it has taken me 11 years to figure out my issues. If you can afford it I would try a bunch of screens. Garage sales, Kijiji and thrift stores are incredible. I would see if you could get a hold of 2013 Plasma and a CRT. If you have access to and OLED TV as well that would be good. Become familiar with every type of panel type for computer monitors. VA, IPS and TN. Rting.com and Blur Busters cover all sorts of screens extensively. You said you have a switch try hooking it up to your TV if you Mario. That game runs at 60FPS Almost every other game on the Switch runs like crap. See if you get less or no pain from playing Mario. Find out what panel type your TV is. Compare how you feel to playing Mario on your Switch hand held screen now. The Switch screen uses an IPS. The problem with the Switch is most games use dynamic resolution so when the game puts too much load on the system it drops the resolution to try and maintain it's stable frame rate which is usually 30FPS or lower. Most new screens don't do well running things and these crazy low resolutions. Plasma and CRT use a pulsed screen so this technique is very different than LED. LED uses sample and hold and IMO is terrible when it comes to content that is under 60FPS. CRT is kinda equal to and LED at 960FPS and a Plasma is kinda equal to a 600FPS LED. They are good at smoothing out motion from left to right. Otherwise called motion tracking or eye tracking. 30FPS creates lots of stutters and your brain and eyes have to compensate for that. I can only really handle 30FPS on my Plasma and CRT but I still don't like it. A lot of movies are up converted to 30FPS when we watch them on DVD or Netflix. If the game or movie is done right at that low FPS they will throw artificial motion blur at it and in turn this makes the image more smoother to your eyes even at the lower frame rate. The problem is tons of companies still don't do this so you have movies and games that cause crazy eye strain to people who can't handle all that stuttering and terrible image quality especially in fast scenes. It doesn't sound like blue light is your issue. Check your monitor's peak brightness hopefully you don't have some monitor with 1000 peak brightness. If you do Aim for one that is 350 or below. Another solution to cut the blue light and brightness is if your monitor has black frame insertion. You have to do your research on a good monitor for that as all BFI monitors are not equal. If done right it will insert a black frame at the end of every refresh cycle. This usually cuts the brightness in half. If you have a 120hz monitor you can download RetroArch and run their software version of BFI. Just use a game that is 60FPS and you will see how nice and comfortable it will make the screen. OLED screens solve a different problem. They give you an instant pixel response time but this doesn't solve the motion blur issue. LG OLED and any 2020 OLED now has BFI included with it and they are now being compared to Plasma TV's in terms of motion. They also handle any low frame rate movie content better then any regular LED TV. Yeah you may have to give up your computer job. Sorry to hear it and good luck.
martin Hey Martin,
what type of heterophoria do you get? I have a "small" esophoria and after i tried W10 2004 for a weekend without success, now i am constantly "disoriented" in front of any display and two weeks are passed. Next week i will go to my optometrist and i'll see if something happens to my esophoria (maybe now is worst then before?!) and i think to start with visual training and/or prisms!
martin thanks for the reply! I have been to one optometrist and then an ophthalmologist today. The latter was my worst experience with a doctor. However, at both places they did extensive vision tests. I don't have any problems with my vision or alignment with my eyes. The ophthalmologist today said I should see a neuro-ophthalmologist.
Tommy98 I believe at this point depending on what I'm doing I have used and do use every screen type except I have no experience with mini LED and full array local dimming LED screens. I use a VA panel at work I have an IPS tablet at work and I have 2 TN panels at home, 2013 Plasma TV's and a 2002 JVC CRT. I also have a Yotaphone 2 which has an OLED screen on it. My biggest issue is what I'm doing on the screen ends up being the biggest cause of eye strain. I don't like to watch movies/shows unless it's on my Plasma TV. When I game I always use the correct screen for the job and that is usually determined by what game I'm playing and what Console It is. It would be in your best interest to become familiar with all the screen types and what kind of content you are doing on them. Are you only reading text? Are you only playing games? Are you only watching movies. Linus Tech Tips has done good videos on all the different screen types. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNc2fKuVnGU At least in my case if you can narrow down your causes of pain you should be able to do 16 hours of screen time a day if you want. Everyone's eyes see and process screens differently and just cause a CRT/Plasma or LED using BFI is most comfortable to me doesn't mean it will work for you. If you are watching movies it is a big deal to make sure you know what the content you are watching vs what your refresh rate is. https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=3111&start=10
Games are the same and it pays to know what FPS your game is running at and if it's locked. Every single game will be different. If I pop in Gex for the 3DO that game is terribly programmed. It's capped at 30FPS but it's not stable and the FPS jumps all over the place. It causes tons of strain pretty fast. Same thing with Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 for the PS. The FPS is not stable and there is tons of studder. When I play the Dreamcast version of THPS 2 though no eye strain because it's locked at 60FPS. My biggest triggers are motion blur, PWM flicker and very bright screens. You might get lucky and maybe you just need a certain screen type and all your problems are solved. All of us are different on here. Another strange one for me is I can't tolerate any LED light bulb. I still to this day have not figured that one out. I even tried one of the better more expensive LED's that has less blue light in it then Incandescent and is flicker free but still gives me eye issues. That's why I own over a 1000 Incandescent bulbs for the rest of my life just in case. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply and advice! That's a lot of light bulbs! As of right now am trying to narrow down why I can use my phone and not other screens. I know that something in my brain changed or deteriorated because my pain just occurred randomly one day without any changes to my monitor or anything like that. When it started I had been using the same setup for like 4 or 5 months with no issues.
Thanks for your help!
Tommy98 what is your age may I ask? Its not uncommon for heterophoria to set in after a virus infection for example, or simply with age. Also most optometrists are bad and wont find anything, or know of the now obvious connection between heterophoria and new tech. I pesonally help about 5 people that Ive met and sent to my specialist with significant finds when checked properly.