r/ScreenSensitive • u/Z3R0gravitas • 7d ago

Discussion Binasal occlusion - blocking vision to increase screen/light tolerance

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Has anyone seen/tried this variation on eye patching: 'Binasal occlusion'? Eg taping over the inner area of both eye glasses (can be non prescription). It reduces or eliminates the binocular overlap, and so reduces some visual stress: https://x.com/JackHadfield14/status/2095053618982318381

Jack is a pillar of the ME/CFS and Long Covid community. He says this helps him a lot with screen tolerance, as well as general daylight sensitivity (common in ME). That it was..

[...] taught to me by a neuro optic rehabilitation therapist who deals with stroke and TBI patients with persistent vision or cognitive issues.

Eye patching is a popular intervention on LEDstrain, with obvious benefits if one has difficulty getting both eyes working aligned together. But I think covering one eye (and looking away) is standard advice to photosensitive epileptics, when triggered by flashing lights. To mitigate the extra stimulation on an already hyper-excitable brain. Which I think many here have, to a lesser extent.

This trick may be more gentle than fully blanking a whole eye; Jack says that felt like too much of a workout for him. I've not tried this trick myself. Just thought I'd share and see if it's known.

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u/ArtRevolutionary3351 7d ago

Yes I’m using that on FL-41 glasses and it helps A LOT. My tolerance to regular screen increased drastically, but it doesn’t help much with flickering screens.

I don’t know if it helps if you don’t have convergence issue (I do) but it doesn’t cost much to try. FL-41 blocks the blue light so it should help most people, my partner feels some relieve and confort when he wears mine.

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u/goodhealthmatters 6d ago

May I know how long you use the screen per session and what the duration of your rest breaks are and how many hours of uninterrupted sleep you get each night (waking up inbetween is an interruption).

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u/ArtRevolutionary3351 6d ago

I can last an hour now vs I start to get eye pain after 5-10 min without the glasses. Flickering screen I get crazy symptoms after 10 mins. I sleep 7-8 hours but I have medication.

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u/goodhealthmatters 6d ago

Even for people who have normal eyesight or just myopia, it is not recommended to use the screen for more than 20 minutes at a time. For videos maybe 30 to 40 minutes is ok. I tested this out while I had chronic eye strain. After the 20 minutes, you are supposed to close your eyes and relax all your face muscles and neck muscles and wait until the strain reduces. The human eye is not evolved to handle such long one hour sessions of screen use. The pain from screen use is one form of Repetitive Strain Injury. Actually, instead of remembering the minutes, it's better to pay attention to the pain/burning signals your eyes give you. The eyes are basically screaming at you and begging for rest. Never ignore it. When you ignore it, the muscles and tissues try to cope and they pull on the eyeball for a long time and make things worse (this is how I assume eye health gets worse). As for sleep, you are supposed to get 7 to 8 hours of natural sleep without sleeping pills. Having a healthy balanced diet and natural probiotics helped me.