"Screens" revisited

[faith]

Hi all,

and especially to those who have been around a while and know about the subject of photosensitivity or the effects of computers and tv on tics.

 

Okay, I have read all the back posts regarding the issue of screens having an effect on tics, and I think I understand the premise, and I had tried a trial of that about six months ago, although didn't really feel I saw any connection/improvement. .... at the time.

 

Now here is my problem,... I have mentioned that several weeks ago my son had seemed to be eye twitching much more (he had really stopped that for a good while) and I noticed it happening mainly while using the computer or watching tv. Then the rest of the time he wasn't really doing it. So I thought, okay its just while on the computer and tv, but then it started after a couple weeks to carry over to other times as well, and well my theory was somewhere along the lines of the sensitivity starting with the screens, and then the accumulation of it, carrying over to even when not watching. I had to look somewhere, something was happening, I had not seen him eye twitch like this in a while.

 

Soooo, last week I decided to try again and take away screens for a week and see. I do believe the eye twitching diminished withing a couple of days he was not doing it as much or as acutely as before (it was like an exagerated eye wink with the mouth opening wide on one side). So I have kept him away from computer and tv for about 6 days (but of course one day he said they had computer class that day ). And Saturday we went into a large bulk store and I had him look at one of the LCD screens to see if he would eye twitch, which he did, and my husband said he saw him doing it in another part of the store, so now I am looking up at the ceiling and remembering the flourescent lighting...........

 

To get to my problem or question or wherever I'm going with this, my thoughts are that there is something to this...............although I don't know what to do now. Do I just keep going and then he will be desensitized, or do I have to keep him away from screens indefinitely? My husband thinks I am reaching for the stars and said it in those words. He said, "we can't keep him in a bubble", and I am disappointed in him because last time we tried the no screens he read the posts concerning this and could understand the technical explanation that Claire had posted, and was on board with it. But now he is just getting frustrated with all this. .... Can anyone shed any light on what I have observed and where I should go with this, or am I fighting a losing battle? I had told my son that the tv and computer wires had to be replaced but he is eight and he will figure this out soon.

 

Anyone who's been successful with the no screens trial, could you share how that has helped and what I should do now if I think it may be a contributor. Yesterday (day after the store) and this morning I am seeing some more twitching -- is this because of the infractions? Could a little exposure cause it to start again? Or do I have to be 100%?

 

Thanks

Faith

[Caryn]

Okay, Faith--

This is a stretch, really. But light sensitivity is a symptom of pyroluria. I am just throwing this out there, because it may just be a matter of adding more zinc to his supps? Maybe someone else with more experience could jump in here. My ds did blink more with T.V. and computer at one time but I honestly never took too much notice or wrote down any specifics. All I know is that he doesn't now and he is being treated for pyroluria in addition to tics.

Caryn

[janey]

Hi Faith,

 

My son developed an eye twitch around the age of 5. The eye twitch went away after we took away ALL the screens for about a month. I did not let him have any screen time until it was gone. Then I introduce it slowly.

 

Then last fall he developed a nose twitch. Again I took all the screens away for about a month and re-introduced them slowly. Then over the summer he again developed the nose twitch (he was allowed to bring electronics to camp . This time I found this site and gave him some of the supplements suggested. I took away the TV, the gameboy but not the computer. The computer has an LCD screen which is supposed to be okay.

 

I hope this helps.

Jane

[michele]

Caryn,

Have you ever commented on your treatment for your son for Pyroluria? What are the amounts and supplements he takes? What is his age and weight? Have you noticed improvements?

Michele

 

Okay, Faith--

This is a stretch, really. But light sensitivity is a symptom of pyroluria. I am just throwing this out there, because it may just be a matter of adding more zinc to his supps? Maybe someone else with more experience could jump in here. My ds did blink more with T.V. and computer at one time but I honestly never took too much notice or wrote down any specifics. All I know is that he doesn't now and he is being treated for pyroluria in addition to tics.

Caryn

[bmom]

I have also done some looking on this as it seems to be a problem with my son-and also my husband too. After reading back posts, it seems to be tied to either one of a few things or more. I believe it can be due to pyloria, increased mercury, or yeast. At least that is what I have gathered. I do restrict my son to 30 min of Game Cube time on Sat and Sun only. This is very difficult as he and neighbors love Game Cube. TV kind of seems to be a watch and see. He currently doesn't have tics going on although I do notice a hard blink once in awhile watching TV. At that point, I have him pick something else. He does not watch much TV anyway. If he were ticcing, I would not hesitate to take all screens away for at least 10 days although I dont know how I would approach school-computers, programs, etc. We do have one Plasma which I actually think it causes more problems for him than the CRT. It is larger, so that may be the problem. I am still investigating this myself. I know this summer I had put him on Benedryl for a few days and it seemed to send his light sensitivity off the charts. Claire solved this with antioxidants, some solving it with chelation, others addressing the Pyloria problem. Any other info. on this would be helpful from all. I have not had my son do much of the testing yet besides a hair analysis which showed low in some antioxidants and high in aluminum. I am trying to address those. This is one of the things that I would love to address. Just wanted to add that my husband has a hard time with some of the things I have tried as well, but he will not read anything so he is not informed. I know that can make things even more difficult. Maybe we are a good balance as I would have definately ordered a bubble big enough to put my son in when he was ticcing if I could.

[Caryn]

I know this summer I had put him on Benedryl for a few days and it seemed to send his light sensitivity off the charts.

This is very interesting! I'd like to know why too, what is in benedryl?

[kallik]

What supplements do you give for screen sensitivity?

[bmom]

As far as the Benedryl goes, he was having bad allergies. I started him on Benedryl nightly to sleep for a couple of days. After day 2 I noticed hard blinks in the morning. Didnt know why. By day 4-hard blinks-tic like throughout day, but only in bright light-outside or in places with flourescent lights. Decided to stop Benedryl and it slowly stopped after 3 days. It was as if his eyes could not handle any light. I researched on the computer and found a few places stating that Benedryl has been linked to increase light sensitivity. It definately seemed to be the case for him. He normally has this problem, but not to that extreme. I am not doing supplements except multi, Kids Calm, and Cal. I would like to eliminate this problem. He did not wear his glasses to school one day last week and they watched a film on TV. He called me an hour before school was done and said bring his glasses, his eyes were hurting. I did and he was really blinking. I had him leave with me as I think he was having a light reaction. I just am not sure what is causing the problem for him yet. I also started a probiotic to see if this will help. That is as far as I have gotten with it yet. Any ideas?

[emma1]

Does anyone know how DLP televisions figure into all of this? I know I've read lcd is supposed to be better.

[janey]

Does anyone know how DLP televisions figure into all of this? I know I've read lcd is supposed to be better.

 

 

Hi,

 

I have a DLP and he doesn't do well with that either. His LCD computer monitor seems to be the best.

[faith]

Janey,

thanks for your input. Did it take a month before the blinking subsided, or did it diminish gradually and took a whole month to stop? Also, is there any eye blink when using the LCD? we have a laptop lcd and that is the computer he uses, altho he is twitching with that too. Also, there were times before this when he used it and did not have problems., so I am all sorts of confused. He does not have any gameboy type games nor do we have any video game equip. He did not watch tv or computer all day yesterday and he was still doing it, after those few improved days. If anything it was that day at the big store that started it again......I am still going to restrict computer and tv--much easier during the school week and my husband is at work till late nite.

 

Caryn, I think it might be time for me to order the pyroluria test kit. It is worth checking into. The part about the sensitivity to lights--I never noticed anything unusual, but my mother used to always comment on him being bothered by the light, but she was talking about when they would get up during the nite to use the bathroom and she'd turn the light on, he would squint and close his eyes -- but doesn't everyone do that after being in the dark and then exposed to light?.... Also do you have to have all they symptoms listed, or just a few? He doesn't have white spots on the nails, only thing he never tells me about dreams when he wakes up, and I asked him recently and he says he doesn't have dreams. ...

 

bmom, do you notice any tics when he uses the game cube now, or just with prolonged use?

 

Faith

[QsMom]

I wanted to chime in here with our experience with screens with my son. We too tried the "no screens" test back in the June timeframe. I observed that TV seemed to be a major trigger for my son. The tics seemed to increase in frequncy and intensity when he watched TV or looked at the computer (i.e. watching a picture slide show). He also seemed to have some sensitivity to sound and light in general when outside. LCD seemed slightly better than a non LCD TV, but he would tic regardless of the type at that time. While I really enjoyed our quiet family oriented evenings, it was tough not to let him watch TV, and we did no screens most of the summer as it seemed to help.

 

Since I put him on Feingold and the casein free diet, his body tics have stopped. We have reintroduced TV and now he can tolerate it without an issue.

 

I read on a post somewhere that once you remove the primary trigger the secondary triggers so not have as much of an impact. I'm wondering if that is playing out here?

 

I also would question if my son could have been deficient in zinc to play on what Caryn cited. He is on Kids Calm which has some zinc as well as Kangavites multi which has zinc. He's been on both now for about three month so I would think this has allowed time for him to start seeing benefits from taking them.

 

Good luck to everyone having a screens issue. This is a tough one especially with little ones.

 

Sending you all hopeful thoughts ....

[heveritt1]

Wow, sometimes I read these post and can not believe how similiar the situations are to my own. I just read this whole panel and have never thought about some of these things. We have a huge problem with TV etc. and have only one small LCD TV. Antibotics have not been working with the tic this time, so we are just doing so much research, doct appts. We are even changing him to a private school because his senses are so bad he covers his ears during class and is always in trouble.

 

I have a question for Q's mom, I have a delayed allergy to Casien and have recently finally figured out that dairy does bother me some, so I want to do a Casien free diet test with my son, but he is rejecting it so bad. He has an egg allergy, so he is so mad I am telling him he will have to stop drinking milk. How did you do it? I also just got the Feingold diet in the mail and need to get into it also. It is all so much, I tell you I am so overwhelmed lately (not to mention I work full-time).

 

Anyway, I will also look into the light sensivity thing too. Makes total sense.

 

Thanks for all the post! Holly

 

Janey,

thanks for your input. Did it take a month before the blinking subsided, or did it diminish gradually and took a whole month to stop? Also, is there any eye blink when using the LCD? we have a laptop lcd and that is the computer he uses, altho he is twitching with that too. Also, there were times before this when he used it and did not have problems., so I am all sorts of confused. He does not have any gameboy type games nor do we have any video game equip. He did not watch tv or computer all day yesterday and he was still doing it, after those few improved days. If anything it was that day at the big store that started it again......I am still going to restrict computer and tv--much easier during the school week and my husband is at work till late nite.

 

Caryn, I think it might be time for me to order the pyroluria test kit. It is worth checking into. The part about the sensitivity to lights--I never noticed anything unusual, but my mother used to always comment on him being bothered by the light, but she was talking about when they would get up during the nite to use the bathroom and she'd turn the light on, he would squint and close his eyes -- but doesn't everyone do that after being in the dark and then exposed to light?.... Also do you have to have all they symptoms listed, or just a few? He doesn't have white spots on the nails, only thing he never tells me about dreams when he wakes up, and I asked him recently and he says he doesn't have dreams. ...

 

bmom, do you notice any tics when he uses the game cube now, or just with prolonged use?

 

Faith

[QsMom]

Holly -

 

In response to your question, I started with Feingold first, then went CF also. I replaced his milk products with almond milk/rice milk since he did not seem to take the soy milk. Where he used to drink milk, he now drinks more OJ, which he tolerates well and takes a calcium supp. We can, thankfully, do eggs.

 

I explained to my son that he was allergic to cow's milk. He's been a trouper and really does not put up a fuss. It also helped him to understand that other kids in his Kindergarten class have allergies so he does not feel different.

 

Here is a link to my success story post and hopefully it will give you some ideas:

http://www.latitudes.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2655

 

So, Back to the screens .... After I could see the diet was working and the tics going away, we added back in screens more liberally to see what happened. Thankfully, the tics have not come back. As I mentioned, the other sensitivites he had - light, sound and also talked loud - also seem to have gone away.

 

Good luck- I hope you have postive results from your trial.

[janey]

Janey,

thanks for your input. Did it take a month before the blinking subsided, or did it diminish gradually and took a whole month to stop? Also, is there any eye blink when using the LCD? we have a laptop lcd and that is the computer he uses, altho he is twitching with that too. Also, there were times before this when he used it and did not have problems., so I am all sorts of confused. He does not have any gameboy type games nor do we have any video game equip. He did not watch tv or computer all day yesterday and he was still doing it, after those few improved days. If anything it was that day at the big store that started it again......I am still going to restrict computer and tv--much easier during the school week and my husband is at work till late nite.

 

Hi Faith,

 

The blinking did not stop over night. I noticed it diminishing little by little every day. He seems fine with the LCD screen. But I do notice that he often squints when he is outside in the bright sun and in large stores where there is a lot of halogen lighting. What's interesting is that the last twitch he had, which was a nose twitch, was also exacerbated by the screen time. So for him, screen time doesn't just have a direct effect on the eyes. It's all so complicated. It is hard to restrict screen time. He's at the age where he is starting to loose interest in playing with toys and really loves his electronics. So when I take that away from him, it's very hard to keep him occupied on the weekends