A question arose on another thread:
Is your light and sound sensitivity different if you cover one eye or block one ear?
Is your light and sound sensitivity different if you cover one eye or block one ear?
-
New Forum Software Installed (Still a few issues but reopening the forum) More details.
Is your light and sound sensitivity one sided?
- Thread starter Haveyoutriedyoga
- Start date
dratalanta
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
My N=1:
No, this symptom is not lateralised; and yes, blocking one eye or one ear helps.
For me, reducing the input by covering one eye or ear reduces the degree of discomfort and sense of exertion, and in the case of eyes can be useful as I can still see.
But it makes no difference which eye or ear. And there is no obvious difference in the type of light or sound sensitivity I perceive (only a difference of degree) between having one eye or ear covered and having neither, so for me there is no indication of lateralisation in that symptom.
An important addendum concerns stereopsis. I often read with one eye pressed into the mattress or pillow and one eye, usually the dominant one, doing the work. In fact I’m doing it right now. My sense is that I do this not to reduce light sensitivity but because stereopsis is not necessary for reading. Turning it off by covering one eye seems to reduce the load on my brain.
An additional factor is that I’m extremely myopic. I only cover one eye when I am reading my phone with my glasses off. My maximum focal length without glasses is 13cm. Stereopsis between 0 and 13cm is quite easily replaced by other strategies (like using my finger to feel where my phone is) and moreover stereopsis in that scenario is likely to be particularly taxing on the brain since the two images are so different.
(I can read perfectly well with my glasses on at a normal reading distance of 30-40cm, but often choose not to. I suspect that, even when using both eyes, reading without glasses has a double exertion benefit: it eliminates the weight of my glasses and ensures there is no visual information past 13cm for me to filter out.)
If I’m not reading, however, and the light becomes unpleasant, I shade both eyes rather than covering one. In a context where I need depth information, stereopsis is presumably the most efficient way to obtain that. Shading only one eye would put a higher demand on the brain’s other methods for calculating depth, making it a poor method to reduce exertion. It appears my subconscious has worked out when stereopsis is worth the effort and when it isn’t.
No, this symptom is not lateralised; and yes, blocking one eye or one ear helps.
For me, reducing the input by covering one eye or ear reduces the degree of discomfort and sense of exertion, and in the case of eyes can be useful as I can still see.
But it makes no difference which eye or ear. And there is no obvious difference in the type of light or sound sensitivity I perceive (only a difference of degree) between having one eye or ear covered and having neither, so for me there is no indication of lateralisation in that symptom.
An important addendum concerns stereopsis. I often read with one eye pressed into the mattress or pillow and one eye, usually the dominant one, doing the work. In fact I’m doing it right now. My sense is that I do this not to reduce light sensitivity but because stereopsis is not necessary for reading. Turning it off by covering one eye seems to reduce the load on my brain.
An additional factor is that I’m extremely myopic. I only cover one eye when I am reading my phone with my glasses off. My maximum focal length without glasses is 13cm. Stereopsis between 0 and 13cm is quite easily replaced by other strategies (like using my finger to feel where my phone is) and moreover stereopsis in that scenario is likely to be particularly taxing on the brain since the two images are so different.
(I can read perfectly well with my glasses on at a normal reading distance of 30-40cm, but often choose not to. I suspect that, even when using both eyes, reading without glasses has a double exertion benefit: it eliminates the weight of my glasses and ensures there is no visual information past 13cm for me to filter out.)
If I’m not reading, however, and the light becomes unpleasant, I shade both eyes rather than covering one. In a context where I need depth information, stereopsis is presumably the most efficient way to obtain that. Shading only one eye would put a higher demand on the brain’s other methods for calculating depth, making it a poor method to reduce exertion. It appears my subconscious has worked out when stereopsis is worth the effort and when it isn’t.
mango
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Yes, my sound sensitivity is much worse on the left side than the right. I experience much worse paresthesia on my left side in general.
I often use different "strength" earplugs for this reason, for example Loop Quiet in my left ear and Loop Experience in my right.
My light sensitivity is equally bad on both sides, though.
ETA: It seems I misunderstood your question though, sorry. I'll still leave this comment up, for what it's worth.
I often use different "strength" earplugs for this reason, for example Loop Quiet in my left ear and Loop Experience in my right.
My light sensitivity is equally bad on both sides, though.
ETA: It seems I misunderstood your question though, sorry. I'll still leave this comment up, for what it's worth.
I think anything about different sensitivity on different sides is relevant!
From someone who only ever gets this mildly (as part of PEM) no
I haven’t answered yet because I haven’t felt light or sound sensitive since the question was asked. I am now feeling light sensitive and have pain on my face after touching it, even though I’m no longer touching it, and my head hurts, I think it’s a headache caused by doing a lot today then having a glass of wine.
My left eye hurts a lot and dim living room lighting feels too bright and even with my eyes closed I want to cover them up to block out light, but having dimmed my phone I’m not as offended by the screen so can write this.
All of the above is worse on the left, but is happening on both sides.
My left eye hurts a lot and dim living room lighting feels too bright and even with my eyes closed I want to cover them up to block out light, but having dimmed my phone I’m not as offended by the screen so can write this.
All of the above is worse on the left, but is happening on both sides.
No, it feels equally overwhelming on both sides.
However (and I know this is only tangentially related) my tinnitus sometimes presents as only in one ear or worse in one ear, and the same for certain visual disturbances I get (vision going dark when I roll over or raise my arms overhead, television static-like colourful dots across field of vision).
However (and I know this is only tangentially related) my tinnitus sometimes presents as only in one ear or worse in one ear, and the same for certain visual disturbances I get (vision going dark when I roll over or raise my arms overhead, television static-like colourful dots across field of vision).
I think this sensation is related to migraines and/or special headaches and not MECFS, I haven’t heard anybody else with MECFS mention it. Apparently it’s called
Peter T
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
If I remember my basic neurology:
Covering one eye would not necessarily reveal if light sensitivity was lateralised, as though we have right and left visual fields lateralised in the brain both eyes feed into each: the right half of both retinas feed into the left visual cortex and the left half of both retinas feed into the right visual cortex.
I am not sure how you would investigate lateralisation of light sensitivity unless you obliged people to look forward and controlled the amount of light in different parts of the visual fields.
Covering one eye would not necessarily reveal if light sensitivity was lateralised, as though we have right and left visual fields lateralised in the brain both eyes feed into each: the right half of both retinas feed into the left visual cortex and the left half of both retinas feed into the right visual cortex.
I am not sure how you would investigate lateralisation of light sensitivity unless you obliged people to look forward and controlled the amount of light in different parts of the visual fields.
That’s fascinating.
Apparently people just report that they have one sided light sensitivity (according to this paper: Unilateral Photophobia or Phonophobia in Migraine Compared With Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalalgias)
It seems as though people do just verbally report that, so it is something that people experience and know about without needing any fancy testing, but the paper above designed a special machine and algorithm;