You have been feeling well lately. Started watching movies on your ipad, or iphone, or computer. And spent hours and hours in front of the screen. You did not feel any problem until late in the day or next day. In the following days you realize you had a major setback due to this careless exposure.

Anyone can relate to this?

The main reason I am asking this is because I am the guy (perhaps the only one) who went from feeling 100% a month post concussion to having PCS after a plane ride from Europe to US (somehow US to Europe two weeks earlier was not an issue). This happened again a year later (again US-EU was ok but return to US was the trigger).

What went wrong, and how come this happened only on the return flight? (jet lag is worse going there) What happened? Clearly you are tempted to say: plane rides and jetlags are bad even for healthy folks, and exhausting for people with PCS. Except for me this was not an average setback, this was a major life changing setback (similar to what Drew experienced). I have been land strapped since, while my job requires me to fly (and I'd love to).

My latest hypothesis: Flights to Europe leave at night. I end up watching a movie and closing my eyes for a while to sleep (manage a couple of hours or so). Flights to US are during the day. I do not sleep (it's daylight throughout and most people are up) and I end up binge watching movies, I think about 3, so that is 6 hours of watching on the seat screen that is so close to the eyes (convergence).

I land and everything is OK. But symptoms start the next day and they last for months. Happened twice out of two. I just realized it might be mostly a vision issue. It would be amazing if it is so, since easily avoidable. Is that possible?

What do you guys think?

Thanks

Makes sense to me. But, the duration of your struggles do not. I have never needed more than 2 weeks to recover from excesses. But, I have been able to take time to recover. If you have to jump right back into work stress, it may take longer.

Thanks Mark. Do you have convergence insufficiency and does your work entail a lot of reading? I wonder if that can explain the difference in recovery time between us. I do not jump back to work, I actually take a long leave but perhaps the long impact is due to my eye condition and the fact that my work is = reading + writing ....

Anyone else can relate to that story? Have you come across any PCS saying that watching movies on place made them much worse? The trick is that it happens with a lag, so there is no real time signal/warning that you are overdoing it...

Thanks

Screen time has been a big issue for me in general. A concussion specialist pointed me towards f.lux: software to make your life better

This programs dims your screen so it's not as bright. I usually have it dimmed as much as possible all the time. I think it has made a difference.

Thanks. I do have the same program and do exactly the same. It helps a lot!

Still hoping to hear from people with experience of eyestrain and resulting setbacks...