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This or something connected to it is literally ruining my last chance at life but I cannot solve it and there is always a catch. I was disabled long ago by bad
by hestipod 8y ago
This or something connected to it is literally ruining my last chance at life but I cannot solve it and there is always a catch. I was disabled long ago by bad surgery and left in lots of pain. My physical career was ended. I was denied social assistance and fell in every crack. Life has never been stable enough long enough to reeducate and rebuild. In suicidal desperation I posted in a few places asking for ideas. A few months back a very kind person reached out to me in response to one of my posts on social topics and offered me an opportunity, a once in a lifetime thing that can work around my issues. In the process of updating my equipment (I had been primarily using a 12yo TN/CCFL having laptop) I experienced severe eyestrain. That sent me down a path of "why" and months later I still have no answer.
Eye doctor said I was ok and found nothing to explain this. I have monovision from Lasik done 20 years ago but it's never been an issue. I tested for and ruled out, to the best of my limited ability, the common gremlins like excesive blue light (always used f.lux/redshift before) and even tried the Uvex glasses that block ALL blue light. Tried PWM free displays and no change. Lowered brightness, changed ergonomics, font rendering, drivers, filters, OLED, ambient lighting. Anything common sense or the internet has come up with doesn't work for me. I even considered it was psychosomatic given the importance of me being able to do the one last thing I could do for any conceivable work and entertainment...sit at a computer...but no tactics to deal with that help. I was thinking about making an Ask HN thread recently but my last experience with that was pretty poor and the offer came from outside of that, but I saw this relevant post today and am desperate so here I am again.
Other than some older, specific stuff like a MBP 2011 17" antiglare screen that I had to sell(panelook.com says it had an RGB backlight but some dispute that), an iPad 2 on iOS (for at least 30min anyway), and a Windows Phone Lumia 635 on Windows Phone 8.1, Any LED backlit display I look at, and ALL modern ones I have found, on any brightness, filter or setting, or OS causes tingling in my face, back of head, and neck which turns into strain/pain/headache. I can replicate it. I can soothe it with time away or using the old, half functional CCFL laptop. I have tried 8 different panels in a Thinkpad, everything Best Buy has, borrowed from people, wasted money buying on eBay and testing. No success or answers.
There is a 10yo/168+ Apple support thread with no solution (was posted here not long ago in fact and most people blamed PWM or said it wasn't a big deal). A forum called ledstrain.org where people much smarter than me have tried to drill down through drivers and dithering and other options. Many of them reduce their quality of life further by using one of the 2 expensive and limited E-Ink displays out there, or hoard specific models of old displays and GPUs and outdated OS revisions they found work for them. I just cannot live even more limited like that since everything else about my life is already shrunk and reduced and miserable. Not being able to use or function around modern LED stuff is not tenable and there is no reasonable solution even on the horizon. Everything in my life is unstable and I have to solve this to get some foundation again. I am even entertaining the idea that this is all a big cosmic prank given how perfect the timing and specificity of this issue is. So, Loki, if you are out there I surrender. You win. Please give me a break.
- walterbell 8y agoDo you wear glasses? Have you tried an iPad Pro with 120Hz refresh + Night Shift? How much ambient light do you have when using the computer? Is the ambient light natural or artificial? If artificial, what spectrum/type?
- hestipod 8y agoSorry I updated the post as I knew I would leave some things out as I am a mental wreck and this is long and complicated. I don't wear glasses. I have monovision from Lasik done 20 years ago and am starting to have presbyopia in the distance eye but it doesn't cause issues with CCFL displays or reading or anything else. I just have aapprox 3" window 10-12" from my face where neither eye is focusing well but displays are twice that far away and the doctor said it shouldn't matter or need correction. I have tried OTC readers with the close eye lens removed to try and close the gap and it doesn't seem to change this problem. Refresh rates and software filters don't seem to matter so far. I have this strain by a well lit window with great natural light (sometimes oddly enough direct natural light can sort of "overpower" the sharpness of the display and make it look more like E-ink and it SEEMS less bad then but hard to tell once it begins. At night I have 4x 60w incandescents in my room with no real change overall. In stores with intense LED or tube lighting it happens just as fast.
- walterbell 8y agoCan you be more specific about "severe eyestrain"? E.g. if there is pain, where? Eyes dry, red? Difficulty focusing? Peripheral vision? Have you had an eye exam when the strain is present? When the strain is present, what happens if you switch to reading paper? Or switch to distance vision, e.g. looking out the window? How long does it take to recover from the strain when reading or looking into the distance?
- hestipod 8y agoThe severe issue for the last 5-6 months since trying to use LED panels has been a tingling/tightness sensation around cheeks/nose that spreads to back of head/neck/trapezius turning into pain/ache. If you clench your eyes/face and lean forward you can feel the neck/upper back tighten too and it's all that area which makes me think something is triggering eye muscles to the degree they are making me tense everything else, but I have had lots of "intuition" about this that was never correct. Eyes have always been dry since lasik, esp when living in forced air homes, but drops and blinking don't help this. No redness that stood out to me.No peripheral vision issues. No color distortions/double vision/ weird visual stuff but mild floaters I have had for 20-25 years. It can trigger anywhere from seconds to several minutes depending on the display. I have not had an exam when it's present. No insurance and scheduling/access is not quick. Switching to any reading/distance but the LED displays soothes it with time and I feel no symptoms reading on paper. If its flared badly and other pain/stress/tension is high it can take some hours or a night's sleep to recover. On a good day with only a few min of strain induced, an hour outside is enough. Font size, antialiasing, resolution, different distros, drivers never mattered...even tried an all AMD laptop as some think intel drivers are the culprit but it was worse than most. The old display is supposedly the worst of all specs...low res/glossy/TN/CCFL/ has PWM and not great color gamut etc. Running Xubuntu on it, but that same distro and all others hurt on the LED laptops.