Are you a programmer with chronic headaches? If so please read
jacquesmattheij.com
jacquesmattheij.com
There are two phenomena that never cease to amaze me. One is this one: You go through life hearing about Problem X ("migraine headaches are really debilitating!") but you never quite know what the fuss is about. Then you get your first migraine headache and as you're sitting there in the dark feeling nauseous and miserable you suddenly think to yourself "oh, this is what my friends were talking about! Hey, they weren't kidding!"
Every time this happens it somehow takes me by surprise. I guess that, however much you try, you can't easily imagine the actual experience of pain. You have to be shown.
The other phenomenon is that you get used to your own pains, and then find yourself unreasonably surprised that other people don't intuitively understand them. I've worn glasses since I was eight years old, contacts for a couple of decades off and on, and I've been a professional laser scientist (i.e. "someone whose eyes are in chronic danger") so Jacques' story surprises me: You mean other people don't go to the ophthalmologist every year? Oh, right, they probably don't. I only know that intellectually; I don't really remember that from day to day until I read a story like this one.
Human communication, empathy, and imagination are astonishing abilities, but you do discover their limits.
2) sleep at least 7-8 hours a day
3) exercise
* Lack of sleep
* Lack of magnesium or iron
* Too much sugar/fat
* Caffeine withdrawal symptom (and the cure isn't more caffeine ;) )
* Bad position (especially in the neck)
* Flu, cold, etc.
> Flew
(Pet peeve - sorry - bad personal experience)
Most victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks, which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weakened patients.
The pandemic lasted from June 1918 to December 1920, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (1.86 billion at the time) died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 27% (≈1/4), were infected.
I don't know about that, actually. Caffeine is the active ingredient in (low-power, over-the-counter) migraine medication, because it has anti-inflammatory properties. People who have chronic headaches may be unintentionally self-medicating with caffeine; for them, the caffeine withdrawal period becomes concurrent with their regular headaches returning.
More anecdotally, when I don't drink caffeine (and I do go off it for months at a time), I get headaches on and off, about once per week or so. When I do drink caffeine, though, I literally never get headaches.
If I remember correctly, caffeine's purpose in migraine medication is to accelerate the delivery of the payload.
If true, I would find that rather disturbing.
Vasodilation is not necessarily chemically induced, but it is a common-enough proximate cause of headaches (and some other forms of pain) that using a mild vasoconstrictor in addition to an analgesic is more likely to make a general-purpose pain reliever work effectively.
I used to regularly get stress-induced migraines (before I regularly drank anything caffeinated). Then I started drinking 2 cups of tea or coffee per day, which completely cleared up the issue.
Of course, if I go "off schedule," I get a headache now almost immediately.
(http://www.helpforpain.com/arch2000aug.htm)
That site says rebound headache are the most common cause of pain referral to doctors, which is a surprise to me. I would have thought back pain was.
But, in general, yes headache medications can actually cause headaches. Ask your pharmacist.
Bad sitting posture, bad chairs and anything that could strain the spinal cord could result in serious issues. A friend was just short of a disk slip because of his sitting posture. He had a bad headache and after a diagnosis that took a month it turned out to be a problem with his spine.
* lack of exercise
* smoking
near the top
> Too much sugar/fat
I googled it and found that the underlying reason seems to be high blood pressure, which can be caused by extremely high amounts of triglycerines. Unless you eat insane amounts of fat, I think it is easier to lower your blood pressure in other ways (exercising, quitting smoking, reducing sodium intake)
Once it finally actually rose to the level of a toothache and I got it pulled, the change was enormous.
I can't look at white screens for too long, the floaters in front of my eyes will start to give me headaches because they distract me from my focus point. I've been getting chronic headaches for a year and a half now, but even though I'm pretty handicapped in my eyesight, here are some tips:
- Make sure you're not staring into bright daylight/ not sitting right next to a window, which will make it harder for you to focus. - Use as much black as possible, a black theme is a must for your editor! I hated Zend studio when they stopped being easily to configure in the theme department. When I found Apatana Studio I fell in love with the default dark themes.
- Make sure your monitors are up to date. Your resolution and sharpness of Fonts must be adequate. And if you feel yourself leaning over to read something on your screens. We have a problem... I'm sporting two 27" monitors right now at EYE HEIGHT. Which leads me to...
POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE. - Leaning forward is NOT good. Better, angle backwards a little bit if your chair allows it. If you start leaning forward, your back muscles will tense up, which will tense up your shoulders, which will tense up your neck...which will tense up your scalp, and there we go, chronic tension headache. Relax your shoulders, make sure they're not shrugged up when you're using your keyboard and mouse. Otherwise fix your chair/desk height.
- Ok so we can also get the migraines out a little bit, they are more often caused by eye strain, or poor circulation. Quit smoking, leave your work area for a short stroll from time to time. I get the sharp migraines a little bit less.
- Tension headaches might also result from a misconfiguration in the bedroom area. Wrong mattress, wrong cushions: headache.
After 3-4 days of a constant splitting headache which felt like I'd been hit with a cleaver, I noticed a lump at the back of my head/neck. This was finally enough to make me go to the doctor (obviously fearing brain cancer or some other deathly disease). The doctor diagnosed "Occipital Neuralgia" [1] which is basically the compression of one of the scalp nerves as it exits the spinal column. As I often end up slumped forward in my chair, head angled up, this was compressing those nerves and causing the pain. It had never occurred to me that the pain could have a physical cause. Since then, better posture control has meant very few headaches.
The lump it turns out is just a swollen glad, possibly from an unrelated minor infection or from the swollen nerve itself.
My osteopath calls it "programmers bump" :)
Pains in the back of the head, or down the side of the face it is almost certainly neck/back related. After suffering a couple of years with on/off head pain I finally figured this out & it literally took a couple of sessions to work the tightness out.
(I had a scare too because the trapped nerves in my neck caused lumps to appear all up and down the length of it :S not fun!)
So, yeh, I second the recommendation to get a medical professional to look at posture.
In my case, the biggest factor seems to be muscular, and doing trigger point massage has almost eliminated the problem. There are an amazing number of muscles that can cause some kind of headache (not just including neck muscles but also a bunch of jaw muscles reachable from the inside of your mouth...) It's now gotten to the point that depending on which type of headache (temple, top of head, stabbing in the eye, etc.) I get, I pretty much know which muscle to massage.
So, my obligatory reference for people who have chronic back pain or headaches: The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook ww.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Therapy-Workbook-Self-Treatment/dp/1572243759
For the last year I've had neck pain and terrible headaches many times a week and often the whole weekends.
Turns out it's not my eyes, it's how I sit, stand and walk. I've tried swimming(with glasses so I don't bend the neck further). Not much luck with swimming, gonna try going to the gym and exercise shoulders and my back.
The doctor applied some "body tape" to my back, shoulders and neck so I could feel in my skin if my posture was outside a normal posture. If you have headaches, try that.
Next step is to try to be aware of my posture when working, surfing and playing games. That's really hard, and I keep forgetting how I sit. :-( If you have any tips for me I'd be glad.
A standing desk is ordered to my new office, I don't know when I'll get it though.
With my right eye, I can't focus on objects further than 26 inch.
I have glasses to correct this, but without glasses I can comfortably use a computer at a 'sweet spot' distance of 18 inch ;-)
Any closer and my left eye image begins to become blurred. Lately I've done a lot of fine soldering work, and then it becomes really obvious. I think I need reading glasses, too.
When it was diagnosed, they told me that it was too late to correct. For children "pirate patches" are used to blind the good eye and train the lazy one.
If everyone reading this discussion takes only one thing away from it, I hope it is to watch out for their kids in case they develop a bias towards one eye. You can do something about it, but only until they are about 7 years old. After that, the problem is to do with the development of the brain rather than of the eye, and today's medical science has no way to correct it.
BTW, there is definitely an English term "lazy eye", but I don't know whether it has the same meaning or refers to another specific condition.
Getting new glasses might be the solution for some people, but for others, it could easily be something like having your screen brightness just a little too bright or dim.
The motivation to share advice is admirable but it's just as mistaken as similar "this is the path to my success, you should do it too because it should work for everyone".
To combat this, I do a few things:
- Try to take frequent breaks, even if it's just closing my eyes for a couple of minutes
- Keep the room lighting at the right level - not too bright, not too dark
- Use larger fonts and good contrast - a black background on my text editor, where I spend the majority of my time and light grey, almost white, but not quite as stark, text seems to be the best balance.
- Try and get plenty of sleep - If I start the day tired, then my ability to focus on what I'm looking at and my visual stamina are both going to be shot by noon.
Don't forget that in England your employer makes a contribution to the cost of eye-tests and glasses if you're a monitor user.
(http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/HealthAndSafetyAtWork...)
Plenty of pages that get linked to from HN are pretty bad for readability - awful contrast or weird font choices. User side CSS is nice, but it's a shame to have to fix so many sites.
Get your eyes checked, at best you get told you have 20/20 vision and you're mad, and to drink more coffee. At worst you're in line for glasses
I'd turn that best/worst around. Glasses are easy to get, cheap, and work deterministically and measurably. If you have 20/20 vision and still have headaches, you probably have bigger problems than the relatively minor nuisance of wearing reading glasses.
It turns out my one eye has a slight astigmatism (I think that's the term) but it's just enough to need glasses for driving and TV watching. With my computer I've made adjustments so I'm not overly concentrating with my other eye. It had been about 5-7 years between my last eye exam because I thought I had 20/20 vision so sometime in between there I developed problems.
So even if you think you have 20/20 vision you still might want to go get an eye exam periodically.
- don't strain the eyes reading small text. Smartphones are especially bad at this.
- don't always look at the same distance. It strains the muscles. We were meant to look at short and far distances, but monitors are always 2-3 ft from our face.
- Take A LOT of eye breaks. Every 10-15 minutes just look somewhere else. That's all.
- Blink. When people read screens, they blink less. If you don't blink, your eyes don't lubricate themselevs and you can develop sores under your eyelids (especially so with contact lenses).
- Get more sleep.
- Wash around your eyes every night. This is good advice for women as well as men. If you mistreat your eyes, you can get protein build-up around the eyelids and follicles. Make sure you gently clean all of it away with a warm compress.
Basically, treat your eyes like precious little jewels. Pamper them and they'll last a long time.
I'm fussy about comfort and appearance, but the prices that are charged especially for the frames nonetheless seem ridiculous.
If you're cheap (I am) I'd recommend Goggles4u. If you search for coupons, and you can get a basic CR39 backup pair for $10 ($5 if you're willing to 'Like' them on Facebook first), a decent polycarbonate AR pair for $25, and a great pair for $40. Interface is awful, communication is awkward, shipping is slow, but prices are great and product quality is generally high.
If you want less hassle, try EyeGlassDirect. They are US based, respond to email, and are a fraction of the cost of your local shop. You can get two pairs of AR polycarbonate for about $100, no coupon searching necessary.
Both of these places will put new lenses in your existing frames for about the same price. I've even gone so far as to order designer frames from Ebay, and have them shipped directly to Eyeglassdirect to have lenses put in.
If you want more info, www.eyeglassretailerreviews.com and glassyeyes.blogspot.com are good starting points. But don't get bogged down. Skip the research and do it!
ps. As another poster points out, Costco isn't bad, but once you start buying online even their prices will seem extreme. But they (and Walmart Optical) are good places to get a prescription and exam.
The shop has changed hands, it appears, and also, extrapolating prices forward to today, they would simply be more than I'd be comfortable paying right now. But I'd still pay relatively more for something similar -- just without the final round or two of high markup.
This pair has lasted well over a decade. So I don't view the past expenditure as a waste -- both for the resulting durability and for the consultation that led me to this model. But, again extrapolating in my imagination, looking at upwards of a grand for a pair of glasses just seems extreme.
I'll have a thorough look at your recommendations. Thanks again.
This is another migraine-stopper.
I didn't get headache from my bad eyesight (around 1/2 dioptrin), but easily got completely tired during work (no matter how much I've sleeped during the night). Since I've got lenses this issue disappeared, no more tiredness at all during the day.
1) I got a bigger monitor (for times I'm not using the laptop's screen.
2) I sit about four feet away from the monitor now ... that's classified as intermediate distance and doesn't require your tired eye-muscles to work nearly as hard to focus.
3) Eye exercises ... the rule-of-thumb is to look at something 20 feet (or more) away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes.
Ergonomics can help too ... because the same guideline that helps you avoid neck strain will put the monitor in the sweet-spot of your eye-glasses (ignore this for contact wearers). Level vision should put your gaze one-third from the top of your monitor. Most people have their monitors too low!
I hope this helps someone!
Turns out, I didn't need them (and still don't). What happened was that the refresh rate on my CRT monitor was reset to 60Hz (probably due to a driver update). Once I returned it to the highest setting, my eye strain/pain went away. Of course, with LCDs it's not really a problem anymore, but keep this in mind if you're still on a CRT.
Am still trying to get used to wearing them. And the first time I wore my glasses everything seemed so much clearer.
If you are lucky and the lenses work well for you, you won't even notice that you have them inside (except for the fact that your vision is much better).
I went back to glasses anyway, because I missed the way they look on my face.
The problem is that if you need to correct your vision for close-up work, a lens that corrects sufficiently may not be suitable for general purpose vision. In this case, you need to use glasses as you'll need to take them off when you get up from your computer, or you'll need bi- or vari-focals.
In all honesty I think I have to go see an optometrist also. It's long due. I'm getting these headaches staring at the MBA screen, never used to get them before.
You know when I tried setting it to Medium or Large it almost looked like Metro!
Apple should be ashamed to not have this working by now.
Any experiences with "computer progressives" out there in HN-land?
I still get headaches, but they're much less frequent, much less severe and it's usually much easier to track down the cause. (It's usually lack of sleep combined with too much screen time).
As a bonus, if I avoid computer & TV screens for the 2 hours before bed, I fall asleep within 30 seconds of my head hitting the pillow.
"If you have headaches, especially chronic ones do yourself a favor and have your eyes checked, you might need glasses without realizing it."
This is why Google SERPs return a snippet and not the whole page of text for every page. Summarising is a very useful thing. What is it about saving time that disappoints you?
His summary is short.
Brevity is useful.
Glasses make a World of difference, esp as I am usually looking at more than one screen and switching between them. I went for a very light frame, like Lindberg for example as these were most comfortable.
I have mild hypermetropia, but it hasn't bothered me so far, so I'm not wearing glasses.
Guys working on laptops should pay attention to this. Looking down (tilting the head forward, even slightly) means the muscles in the back of the neck now have to hold up the weight of your head (3 kilos?), instead of merely balancing it, as when the head is upright. This can cause serious neck tension.
1. Don't forget to breath. When I'm coding sometime I'll concentrate on the problem so much that my breathing slows down and becomes extremely shallow.
2. Don't let the code/problem take you away. Practice self-awareness.
This will prevent the tension for building up.
Heed this advice - just be aware!
Glasses are a good way of weakening the eyes even further. Eye exercises are a better way of keeping you vision in good shape. Keep your arm extended, focus on thumb, slowly bring it as close as possible. Extend again.
When reading a page on the computer, avoid scrolling line by line with a mouse as you read. Better for the eyes to use the space bar to do page scrolling.
If you find reading a book is out of focus, you might wait for 10 seconds or so, for the eyes to focus. Happens if you are not used to focusing on near objects.
Source?
I used to have no glasses at all, and got severe headache attacks that would last for days. I then went to see a doctor and they found out that i was overaccomodating my eyes, and that i needed a pair of strong glasses, to relax the muscles of my eyes since they were constantly cramping trying to automatically make up for the loss in eyesight.