Are you photosensitive?

Do flashing lights/colors bother you?

  • Yes

    Votes: 130 63.4%
  • No

    Votes: 75 36.6%

  • Total voters
    205

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Anyone ever think of wearing an eye patch like a pirate? Maybe they all just had epilepsy.
 
Trees

I find the flickering of sunlight through the trees as we're driving to be worst. The flashing on the TV bothers me, but it's never given me a seizure. I also am bothered by the high intensity flashing of lights during the night when the road is being repaired.
 
There are quite a few of us on this forum who are bother by the flickering sunlight through the trees. This is my earliest memory of seizure activity, but at the time was not sure what it was except that it felt weird. We have a stretch of road crossing a mountain pass where the freeway lanes are only divided by steel posts every foot or so... the flashing headlights going in the opposite direction are terrible. My husband drives, so I cover my eye for about the 2 miles of that stretch.
 
I can't even be around flickering florescent lights. There are some places/rooms I simply cannot enter because of this. I can not see strobe lights, flash photography, watch movies in the dark, I can't be around fire because it flickers off the wall, or fireworks, the light between the shadows of the trees when they don't have leaves, I rarely ever go any where around day light savings times. That's just a short list. Lately more and more stuff have been affecting me. It's terrible because pretty everything in the adverage teenager's life is filled with flashing lights and I can't do any of that stuff, dances, being in the year book, assemblies, I can't even go into the school library because it's all florescent lights that are really bad.
 
The experts say photosensitivity affects maybe 5 percent of folks with epilepsy. I don't buy this. The last parent support group meeting I went to pretty much all the parents there said lights were a problem for their child.
 
While at this point the conclusion for me is that I do not have E, I definitely have migraines, and I take AEDs for them and have an olfactory aura that can be seen in partials-which is what first led to the pondering if I had SPS hence why I started on AEDs. But since I think migraine and E have similarities, and many people have both, I will weigh in here too. For me, card headlights at night bother me. I can't stand them-they hurt. Naturally I have to drive, so I deal with it, but some nights are worse than others. I have worn sunglasses religiously for years, even when it is overcast, because there is still a glare.
 
Camera flash (one camera), no. A bunch (like say walking in a casino, or a Christmas tree... yes. I can't explain it, but my eyes start feeling "weird" or behind my eyes. I can't explain it, I just KNOW it isn't right.
 
how "they" define photosensitivity

Unfortunately the way researchers define photosensitivity is whether you have a specific EEG response to photic stimulation. There is no gray area--it's either yes, they see that pattern on the EEG, or no, they don't. They do not account for people who have an abnormal response to the strobe if it isn't the exact spike/wave thing they're looking for. I don't think anybody has tried to research what it means if you have one of the "lesser" EEG responses, as far as what happens when you're exposed to a flashing stimulus. The research is very black and white, as it were, which drives me nuts. Maybe photosensitivity is a spectrum disorder, and on one end is seizures, and in the middle is migraines, and at the other end is dizziness, strange sensations, etc.

And don't get me started on how much EEGs don't even pick up...ancient, crude technology. Doctors get so dismissive if they can't find enough wrong with the EEG, and they never tell you how inexact it is.
 
When you see something flash it's like staring at a computer screen for too long times 1000 + pain. and it just feels WRONG. and people don't get that it actually HURTS you. When ever I tell people that they cause pain they look at me like Really? It's such a strange idea to them that light can cause actual pain. It makes it all the harder to explain to people.
 
I am photosensitive. Computers are the worst. I usually take a lorazepam before I get on. Loud music. I remember the first time it happenned . I was watching tv and everything sounded funny. I thought the tv was broken. So I found out then. That was about I don't know 8 years ago. And store lights bother me sometimes.And I get that sick feeling in my stomach and go sit in a quiet room and breath.
 
My very first (known) seizure, I was at a computer (waiting for a movie to start, first date with my now dh). I have had at least one other, while being in front of a computer. But, I've had many, I was not around a computer.

What is this about migraines and seizures? I'd be curious to learn more about any possible tie-ins. I get some monster migraines and mentioned in another thread, how at least twice (I can only go off what people have told me), I had a blinding headache.
 
No I am not photosensitive in any negative way, however I can perceive flashes of light where others claim there is none and I can see the individual frames when I go out to a movie and on the television.
 
Flashing lights or colours don't seem to be as bad as they used to be. A camera flash used to set me off. Still can't go clubbing or anything with extreme lighting and have to wear sunglasses right through summer
 
Yes, bright lights are a big trigger. Flashing lights are worse. Just knowing that a light is on somewhere & in my eyes, bothers me.
Usually wear dark sunglasses & a baseball hat with a bill(the bill blocks some light that the glasses just don't get).
Once in my teens, I had a t/c in a Haunted House that I guess had mirrors & strobe lights in it-I really don't remember it-just remember being carried out & taken home.
 
A big yes, but get this I can on a good day play computer games and even weld using a mig welder, on a bad forget it.
I cannot go clubbing as the strobes are a big no.
 
No, they don't seem to bother me. The lights they used at my last EEG were incredibly bright. No seizure.
 
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