photophobia

14 January 2022

Turn Down the Lights! -LightDims-

How did it come to this? We’re buying more and more electronics, and they seem to just love bright little LEDs – especially blue ones – some of which stay on all the time!

Some manufacturers are starting to get the idea, especially for appliances made for a bedroom. But still, many of us are suffering from LED overdose.

Thankfully, there’s a company in the USA that has come up with an answer. Special stickers that filter the light – that is, you can either black out the light completely, or dim it. And all that without sticking on electrical tape or some other tacky looking solution.

They’re called LightDims. And there are other options as well – how about metallic/aluminum coloured LightDims to match your aluminum appliance? There are also customizable sheets and larger sheets (finally, I can really dim the light on that alarm clock!) and extra-large sheets. And white sheets to just slightly dim hard LEDs.

You might want to try ordering a complete set, to see what you like the best. You may need that LED light in the living room – it just needs to be dimmed a little. But that silly light on the power bar in your bedroom needs to be put out completely (not that I’m speaking from experience here).

The great thing is, these are easy to remove. So you can experiment to see which kind works best for certain appliances.

Check out some of the options on Amazon right here – Light Dims.

All I can say is – it’s about time.

12 January 2022

Turn Down the Lights! -Dark Reader-

James Resources 0

It’s certainly true that, in the middle of a moderate to severe migraine attack, most of us will not be sitting at the computer. However, migraine patients can be sensitive to light at other times too. And so many of us are making use of “dark modes” on our devices.

Dark Reader as used on Headache and Migraine News — *Testing Dark Reader at Headache and Migraine News*

We’ve talked about various options for improving the light of screens – including Iris, which cuts down on blue light in a very clever way.

But if you want to take “dark mode” to the next level in your browser, check out Dark Reader. Dark Reader aims to give you “Dark mode everywhere”, so that your experience with Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook, Fandom, Yelp – is a lot less bright.

Darkness, contrast, and even sepia can be controlled across all websites, or specific domains. Dark Reader is open source, and free (with a small one-time price for an iOS app).

You may find, as I did, that Dark Mode takes a little fiddling to get started. Make the icon is visible on your browser, and then play around with the settings for each site you want to control. There is a help page here.

Actually, the way that Dark Mode really stands out from the crowd is its contrast and “Light Mode”, believe it or not. Sometimes with dark modes, you’re stuck with a nice dark screen, but then you have bright white text. You can work around that using Dark Reader. For example, you can dim the whites, and still have black text.

Dark Reader also has an app for Safari on iOS iPad and macOS.

Dark Reader is available for Chrome (works with Brave), Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Check it out!

28 February 2020

Is Your Vision Overly “Sensitive” – even when you don’t have a headache?

James Discoveries & Stats 0

If you feel like you are still overly sensitive to visual stimulation even when you’re not in the middle of a migraine attack – you’re not alone. And a new study has confirmed this once again.

There is still probably a common misconception that people with migraine simply have headaches once in a while – bad ones, yes. But that means a bad day, and then it’s all over.

But people with migraine know better. Not only is a migraine attack much more than just a headache, it also often starts before the headache starts, and ends long after. In fact, there are many ways in which migraine affects all of life.

Researchers are continually discovering ways in which the biology of migraine patients is simply different – even in between attacks. (See for example After a Migraine: Vision Problems and Stroke Risk?) A study published this year in NeuroImage: Clinical focuses on sensitivity to visual stimuli.

This particular trial used both objective tests such as EEGs as well as subjective questions to measure “visual symptoms” between migraine patients and controls. One key element used was “gratings” – symmetrical lines – which tend to be unpleasant to look at (and so apologies for the image above, but it illustrates the point).

We know that migraine patients are very much focused on visual discomfort during and even between attacks. Special glasses, avoiding light, using “dark mode”, and even issues with driving past a series of symmetrical posts with the sun shining through them – these are all well known in the migraine community.

This trial confirmed that migraine patients are unusually “sensitive” to visual stimuli. We feel more discomfort than the average person.

This discomfort is similar to what non-migraine patients feel if they are also extra sensitive, though they seem to be generally less-sensitive.

So there is an underlying pattern here, which researchers believe is centred on the visual cortex (located at the back middle section of your brain). The study’s lead author summarized this way:

Most migraineurs also report experiencing abnormal visual sensations in their everyday life, for example, elementary hallucinations, visual discomforts and extra light sensitivity. We believe this hints at a link between migraine experiences and abnormalities in the visual cortex. Our results provide the first evidence for this theory, by discovering a specific brain response pattern among migraineurs.
Dr. Terence Chun Yuen Fong

The next step will be to measure changes before, during, and after a migraine attack. A better understanding of visual sensitivity not only helps us understand migraine better, it may help us to be able to better predict and treat specific attacks.

Meanwhile, don’t brush off that “discomfort” you may be feeling between attacks. It might just be a part of the bigger picture of migraine itself.

Full study available here: Differences in early and late pattern-onset visual-evoked potentials between self- reported migraineurs and controls via The brain of migraine sufferers is hyper-excitable

3 February 2020

A Green Lamp for Migraine?

James Resources, Treatments 0

A unique lamp has been developed specifically for migraine – using pure green light.

Back in 2017 we discussed some research on coloured light (see Migraines and Blue Light – Or Maybe Green Light…). Are there certain parts of the spectrum which make migraine symptoms worse – or better?

Of course, any light can cause problems when it comes to migraine. But if you need some light, what colour is best?

Blue light is a common culprit – and you can read the article above to learn about some ways to minimize or block blue light at the right time (blue light is actually good for you – most people won’t want to block all of it out all of the time!). Red light also seems to bother some people, although we tend to have more “excess” blue light than red.

But some studies, as well as anecdotal evidence, point to the fact that green light may even lessen some migraine symptoms. So the best advice today seems to be – if you need a little light during a migraine attack, make it as green as possible!

And so, the Allay Lamp was created, which emits a completely pure green (which a tinted bulb can’t do). It was designed specifically for migraine sufferers based on research from the Harvard Medical School, and so has some very useful features:

Power/brightness can easily be controlled
An adjustable shade can direct the light where you want it, and even shield you from direct light
Fully portable – charges via USB and then lasts up to 32 hours!
Even has a “regular light” mode

It’s obvious that some serious thinking has gone into this light.

This is obviously not a cheap lamp, but it does come with a 40 day guarantee, so you should be able to give it a decent try before really committing.

So check it out here on the official website: Allay Lamp

(Obviously the author of this post finds this lamp quite interesting, and this is starting to sound like a sales pitch, so it’s worth noting that he’s not receiving any commission whatsoever. He’s just really impressed with the work that’s been put into this lamp, and wants to let you know about it. 🙂 )

Dr. Alexander Mauskop from the New York Headache Clinic wrote about this lamp and some of the research behind it as well – check out his post here: Light therapy with Allay lamp

5 December 2019

New Drug Coming Early 2020: Reyvow

James Medications, News 0

After many years of waiting, a completely new type of migraine drug is projected to hit local pharmacies in the USA in only a few weeks.

Feel like you’ve heard that before? Of course you have. New medications and even new devices have been hitting the market at an unusual rate over the past couple of years. But yes – as the first paragraph stated – this is once again a new class of migraine medication, something that may help some people who haven’t found a good option in the past.

The new type of drug from Eli Lilly and Company is known as a 5-HT1F receptor agonist, and the drugs in this class are referred to as “ditans”. And there is something else that sets this drug apart from the crowd of the recent new drug approvals. It’s an abortive drug – something to be taken when a migraine attack hits. So this is not another preventative, which has been all the rage lately.

Reyvow, or lasmiditan (or LY573144), is a drug we started talking about in 2012, so it’s been quite the wait. Way back then, when there were more concerns about migraine drugs affecting the cardiovascular system, lasmiditan was considered unique because it didn’t seem to carry the same dangers. In fact, people with risk of cardiovascular disease were eventually included in clinical trials.

Clinical trials have shown effectiveness for some patients within 30 minutes, with the common 100mg or 200mg doses. Reyvow seems to alleviate not only pain, but also sensitivity to light and noise, and nausea.

Long term testing over a year also showed that there were no serious side effects (in particular cardiovascular issues). The most common side effect was some dizziness, and rarely some sleepiness. But remember, these are drugs you take when you are already having a migraine attack. And although a minority of patients did experience some dizziness, over the course of the year the side effects seemed to diminish.

However, as with many abortive migraine drugs, it is recommended that patients avoid driving for a few hours after taking Reyvow.

Preventative drugs may be taken at the same time as Reyvow.

The FDA is currently deciding how to classify Reyvow, and their decision is expected in January 2020. After that, Reyvow will be made available in the United States.

As with the other medications we’ve seen hitting the market recently, Reyvow is not a miracle drug. However, every new approach brings with it the potential that the drug will help patients who have never been helped before, patients who have been unable to take other drugs because of side effects or other health concerns, or patients who are simply not satisfied with their current meds.

So yes, the release of Reyvow is big news – and we wait to see how it will help many of our readers.

For more on Reyvow, visit Lilly’s website here.