Hi all. After a few years of prolonged, heavy stress my mild light sensitivity
went through the roof (this happened about 5 years ago). My frequent headaches
turned into really bad migraines, and my world was turned upside down into a
living hell. Flourescent lights are my biggest bugbear, but any spotlights and
other bright lights have an extremely dibilitating effect on me.

Over the last year I have had some success and relief from the extreme light
sensitivity and frequent migraines through the wearing of tinted Irlen lenses -
tinted glasses used to help with the symptoms of Irlen Sydrome aka. Visual
Stress. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have classic Irlen Syndrome - I had to
visit the Irlen diagnostician 3 times until we came up with a tint that was of
any help (fortunately I was only charged for one visit).

I continue to wear the glasses on an almost permanent basis, and my migraines
have been significantly reduced. However, I'm now seeking other solutions as my
extreme light sensitivity continues to have a significant adverse effect on many
aspects of my life. My eyes are 100% healthy - it's a neurologically based
problem.

I am sure there are many of you fellow SPD sufferers out there who also suffer
from light sensitivity - have any of you found any other viable treatments and
interventions?

I have come across various forms of light therapies from places like the
National Sound & Light Therapy Centre and the Sound Learning Centre (both in the
UK where I live) - however the fees are extremely expensive. I'm certainly not
going to pay £2000 just for the priviledge of sitting in someone's chair and
staring at their flashing lights - I'd rather find someone who I could rent the
equipment from at reasonable cost.

I'm looking forward to hearing about all possible treatments for light
sensitivity. Thanks in advance.

Have you ever been tested for allergies?

My SPD son has been extremely light senstitive since the age of 15 months - he was the only toddler in town with blackout sunglasses! Anyhow, his allergist says there is a link between allergies, not just pollen but also food allergies, and light sensitivity. My son's light sensitivity is always much worse when his allergies flare up, and not so bad when the allergies settle down. From all I read, the connection between the immune system and the brain is just beginning to be understood, so perhaps one day there will be one therapy that helps both types of problems.

Might be worth looking into for you.

Irlen Lenses help me a ton.

I have several food allergies. I haven't noticed them or my environmental allergies changing my light sensitivity levels. Migraines on the other hand temporarily make the light sensitivity so bad that I have to go hide in the closet and curl up into a ball to hide from the light.

I have had medications make my light sensitivity worse. If you are taking medications you might want to double check their side effects to see if they mention affecting your eyes.

Tinted lenses have also been a life saver for me. There were days they were not enough as well. Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) seems to be the problem for me... that is neurologically based.

My eye doctor was shocked to learn recently that I use one pair of glasses for reading and distance. Also he learned my dominant eye is at odds with my dominant hand. Right eye dominant, left hand dominant.

Do you have things suddenly "pop" into view (that is SO disconcerting!)? Or tunnel vision? I near fell out of my chair when I learned how much I don't see! Check into CVI...

What has been the biggest, and most surprising help to me was not correcting my vision to be the sharpest it can be. When at the eye doctors he would make my vision sharpest and my sensitivities went through the roof.. he would step it to slightly blurry and it would go down a lot. I would tell him it felt better blurry. He said that I seem to have issues with contrast.

So, taking my prescription back to have slightly blurred vision (not too blurry, but enough to take the sharpness off) in conjunction with tinted lenses, has given such an improvement for the first time in my life. On bad days I wear my sunglasses in the house and at the stores even... don't give a care in the world to funny looks... I am out and about and not feeling like I am dying.. that is what counts! Other days I simply wear my other tints ( I have three different colors now... has been quite the pain getting the right tint)

Hope that helps some. I never realized contrast could impact so much.. I have even tweaked my computer monitor settings so that it strains my eyes less.. yeah contrast and dimness looks icky.. but my eyes and head are soooooo happy!

Changing the dimming level on the Computer does help a lot for me as well.

I have the problem with the sharper the image the worse the generated migraine. I have a horrible time with HD TV (High Definition). My husband can only watch it when I am not in the room. Watching a Football game in HD makes me cry. The 10 yard lines hurt so much to look at in HD.

Thanks for your responses so far to my forum posting.

Yes, tinted (Irlen) glasses have indeed helped reduce the negative impact of my light sensitivity and lessened the migraines. However they are not a solution as my light sensitivity continues to have a significant negative and restrictive impact in many ways on my life and well-being. However, this is not the end of the road, and I do believe there are other light-based therapies out there that can help to a much greater degree and provide a better solution (in addition to or without Irlen tinted lenses).

I have tried the food allergy root for many years, eliminating various foods from my diet. I started on this right in the beginning when my problem was only to do with frequent relatively mild headaches, and then more recently when it turned into full blown migraines and extreme light sensitivity. Nothing in this area has helped. The only "environmental" allergy I have is to those blasted flourescent tube and compact flourescent light bulbs that people are putting up everywhere, ... even more so now than ever due to the badly thought out ban on incandescent light bulbs.

I am not on any medications, so no impact there.

I tried boosting my omega 3 levels through fish oil capsules, and then tried, as an alternative, ground flaxseed. Both of these, even at quite low levels, induced chronic insomnia and actually increased my light sensitivity. So no solution there either.

With regards to using a computer screen, having the background set to black, together with a light-coloured text helps. Also, using a screen with the newer LED type of backlighting makes a significant increase in visual comfort. Something some people might not realise is that the main technology for lighting flat panel computer monitors and laptop screens up till now has been flourescent lighting! - so that would explain why so many people with light sensitivity to fluorescent tube lighting have a hard time with computer screens as well.

Anyhow, I believe that since the brain is "plastic" and is capable of rewiring itself, there must be a way to train the brain to desensitise itself and cope better with processing light and interpreting visual information. When one injures the muscular or skeletal systems then physiotherapy is used to exercise and retrain the body to cope and heal. I'm sure occupational therapy can do the same for the brain for light sensitivity.

There are treatments for light sensitivity offered by the Sound Learning Centre and the National Light and Sound Therapy Centre, but they are prohibitively expensive and I'm sure that if these treatments do indeed work. then there must be cheaper and well proven alternatives.

Have you ever read about Adrenal Fatigue? You might want to do a quick Google and see if it sounds like you.

I've found that some of my light sensitivity is actually sensitivity to UV. If I wear things like block UV, then this helps drastically - so rather than any lenses, they must be polycarbonate. Personally I wear safety glasses for that, because most sun glasses bother me.

The other thing I've found is important for me is that sometimes my sensitivity to light is specifically related to peripheral vision. Lower levels of brightness in peripheral vision might actually have more of an effect, especially if I already have a headache (which is near constantly) than something directly in front of me. If I have something that blocks completely peripheral vision, then that can make a huge difference - I actually have steampunk goggles for that, but other things can do the same thing that don't look so out of place in normal society.

I'll also agree with the LED backlight for a computer screen, as well as a newer LCD rather than older CRT, they have better refresh rates.