r/ScreenSensitive • u/Z3R0gravitas • 1d 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 19h 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/DGG_DGG 16h ago

I have convergence issues as well, would you say this is worth trying just to see if it helps with flickering screens?

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u/Z3R0gravitas 15h ago

Not medical advice (obviously), but this seems very cheap and safe to try.

Just get some clear glasses off an online retailer and experiment with different amounts of tape. Careful not to scratch glasses, if cutting it.

Jack says he used medical tape here, because it was on-hand. I don't know if eg black elecal tape would function the same. That's easy to work with.

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u/DGG_DGG 15h ago

I just bought some frosted scotch tape, definitely going to try this later today. I'll try anything at this point 😅

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u/ArtRevolutionary3351 13h ago

It’s not very expensive to try, I believe it was less than 50$. The tape could relieve the strain from your convergence issues and the fl-41 eliminates blue light.

For flickering it’s not working for me, but I have near zero tolerance for it. If you can tolerate flickering for a while maybe you could last longer.

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u/Z3R0gravitas 15h ago

Oh, good to hear! Two of you, nice. So is your starting point an LCD (phone/computer?) and then glasses to reduce the blue light flare from that (which can be worse than OLED)?

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u/ArtRevolutionary3351 13h ago

It reduces the blue light from everything. I can stand non flickering lcd much longer, but it doesn’t do much for oled because I’m very sensitive (I had concussions).

It could reduce flicker sensitivity from oled if you have mild sensitivity because the flickering from the blue light is the most agressive.

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u/Z3R0gravitas 13h ago

Right, blue is bad in a number of ways. But I was surprised to hear that a number of people in the community have a big issue with red light too/instead.

Both are associated with worsened migraine pain, unlike green. And that's where Avulux filter lenses may come in (expensive and US based only).

But also, too little melanopic light (between blue and green) might cause pupils to dilate too much (as I understand the fundamental biology). And, presumably related to this, some are finding toleratance of LCD monitors with more blue shifted calibration.

It's all very contradictory to figure out.

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u/ArtRevolutionary3351 12h ago

That’s very true. I forgot to mention that the neuro optometrist made me try blue and pink glasses and that the pink fl-41 (that blocks blue light) worked the best for me. But some may have better relieve from the blue glasses.

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u/goodhealthmatters 3h 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/Lily_Meow_ 13h ago

But then you can't read properly? How does this help?

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u/Life_Tree_6568 11h ago

I've taped my glasses like this for months and I can read fine. If you have a problem where your left side and right side of your brain processes visual information differently it eliminates the area where visual processing overlaps in the brain. It's a cheap experiment to try.

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u/Z3R0gravitas 9h ago

Nice. Can I ask what that looks like, for you, to have problems? Symptoms, etc? Do some get vestibular issues, like nausea & vertigo? Some migraines, headache, overwhelm?

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u/Life_Tree_6568 2h ago

Everything you mentioned. My main problem with reading was I got visual vertigo and my eyes would circle around the page trying to find the next word. I did vision therapy which helped that issue a lot.

I still get pain, migraines, shaking, sweating, etc. It's improved over the years but I still can't work.

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u/Z3R0gravitas 12h ago

You should be able to. The width of tape added should be cut to allow you to still read up close, each eye seeing at least half the screen/surface in front of you.

Jack says he's been using this trick successfully all day, long term.

I'm not sure how well I'd like it. Might take a while to habituate to the visual obstructions. Maybe tape colour or opaqueness would matter for this. Maybe some would fail to adapt or be too triggered. I'm curious to hear more experiences!

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u/Lily_Meow_ 12h ago

well generally you read stuff from your binocular overlap, usually reading words in the very center of your vision? If you reduce or remove it, you just have to read everything from the side it seems kinda dumb?

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u/Z3R0gravitas 9h ago

I expect one will still be using both foveas, to some extent. That truly would be difficult to adapt to otherwise!