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What do flickering/flashing lights do to you?

Sat, 05/16/2009 - 19:24

What effect do flickering or flashing lights have on you? Can you describe a bit how you feel when you encounter them and what happens to you?

Does everyone with epilepsy have a reaction to them? Is everyone photosensitive in this way or is photosensitive just one specific type, and there are others who are not bothered by what they see? 

 

Comments

Re: What do flickering/flashing lights do to you?

Submitted by pellykate on Wed, 2010-09-22 - 07:11
If you aren't aware of the zoning out, yourself, it might be an absence. I zone out alot, but I could tell you what I was thinking about. Couldn't tell you much about what was happening around me, but any recollection means you're still conscious. Non-responsive for a few MINUTES is pretty serious.

Re: What do flickering/flashing lights do to you?

Submitted by Dutchee on Wed, 2010-09-22 - 10:09
I will have seizures when lights flicker at 50-100hrz (this is not normal, fotosensitivity is normal 25-30 hrz, but they kept on turning up the flickering during the EEG because I always have symptoms in shops....). This means when I enter rooms with TL lights, 'energy saving lightbulbs, LEDS, 'old' tv's or computer screens (flatscreens are ok for me), but also when I sit in the car and the sun shines through the trees, when I move my had when there are luxaflex in the room etc. I do use sunglasses all the time, but they won't help everytime. When I start to notice that something is 'bothering' my vision starts to change (like I'me looking through a fishtank),I will get a headache and goosebumps start to arise in strange patterns on my body. If I take meds immediately ( due to side-effects I am off every day meds for a while, ordered by doctor) I will not have a seizure, if I am too late, I will. Fortunately in my case the seizures caused by this (or patterns) are small (my other ones caused by other things are way bigger...) , but since 100 hrz is everywhere around us, it is not easy, espescially no in our country (Holland) the governement want to ban the new 'saving energy' lightbulbs to be the only ones for sale. You will understand that I have a garage full off the old ones... .

Re: What do flickering/flashing lights do to you?

Submitted by pellykate on Wed, 2010-09-22 - 12:01
The U.S. is supposedly banning them, too. But the CFL's are poisonous and their light is ugly. It sounds like a big-business/government scam. What kind of seizures do you have in reaction to these light situations? I get a great big violent full-body flail from light through the trees when I'm riding in the car (but not when I'm driving, strangely.)

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