LED-light 'allergy'

Now, i've heard of quite some strange allergies in my life (i actually have a couple myself) but recently i found out a colleague of a friend is actually allergic to led light... No, not PWM or flickering but the actual light produced by LEDs (this was actually diagnosed by a doctor). Symptoms are dizziness, headache and the likes.

Now this got me thinking; What on earth does LED light have that could make one over-sensitive to it?

Toomuch blue light? Try a high CRI light, and see if that improves things.

Probably eye strain/fatigue from the cool tints.

As others have said, it might have to do with the large amount of blue light in most LEDs. It would be quite interesting to see if a high-CRI LED helps him or her.

It's happening.. the INCAN PARASITE! :devil:

I've never heard about it.. oo:

Maybe this friend of a friend is a Surefire or Maglite employee from the good ole' days who hates to see his incan designed lights wallowing on store shelves and mostly absent from the designers software

I too first thought it might have something to do with the tint or color, but wouldn't this mean that he would also get the same problems when looking at neon or fluorescent light? Or some monitors even? Those can all get pretty cool/blue and there's not a single problem with those....

I still think this is another one of those miss-diagnosed 'allergies', kind of like the one my misses used to have. When she was a kid she once ate something with cheese and got mighty sick after, conclusion she is allergic to cheese (actually diagnosed by her mom and sort of confirmed by a doctor)! Nobody even though about the possibilities of something else apparently. So they never gave her cheese ever again and she grew up thinking she actually was allergic! Now i have quite some allergies myself and i think its really important to know how your body reacts with this sort of thing so i told her to just start eating cheese and guess what? Nothing! Not even an itch, and even worse; she likes cheese!!!

Its a real shame i don't know this person myself, i would have a field-day shining all my flash-lights in his face all day long to see what happens. I bet that its not the led light but that it in fact is the PWM because i've heard problems like that before and that this diagnosis has been determined simply because doctor nor patient knows anything about the technology behind leds.......

That, or there maybe is something harmfull in LED lighting, in that case us flashaholics could all get very very sick very very soon.

If a doctor told me I was allergic to lights, I'd get a 2nd opinion.

He could be very very sensitive to EMF radiation.

There is a poor guy somewhere who is crippled if even a cell phone rings near him. But if that's the case anything electronic would effect him.

Does he get sick if he doesn't know the light is shining on him?

Monocrom said:

If a doctor told me I was allergic to lights, I'd get a 2nd opinion.

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Totally agreed! :laughing:

I found "Electrical hypersensitivity"

Double blind tests have had trouble showing this, though. That is, when the patient doesn't know they're being subjected to electromagnetic fields in general, they don't tend to realize that they are. That said, there are interactions between 60 Hz flickers and the human body; and who knows what horrors an individual's brain will find in a particular light spectrum?

What do you mean by "Allergy?" Does he get hives where the light hits?

RepProdigious said:

Now this got me thinking; What on earth does LED light have that could make one over-sensitive to it?

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He needs a second opinion because those symptoms can be indicative of very serious medical issues. (They can also be symptoms of totally trivial ones or even imaginary ones as well, which makes diagnosing them just super-fun, I'm sure.)

Flickering (your comments about PWM aside) would be the most obvious answer. A lot of people are quite sensitive to this.

I get "LED-light allergy" too if somebody shine the Olight M30 at my face :sick2:, if I shine it to their face I'm "LED-light happy."
Try a very dim Led light to see what happen.

Okay, this really confuses me. I thought that, in order for you to be allergic to something, you must ingest it in some form whether you've eaten it or breathed it into you. How could you be allergic to photons or electrical fields?

I guess I'm a hypocrite, but, I'm allergic to work

LED-light 'allergy' ?
Yes it's true but with cool white LEDs only, which also cause definitive blindness...and impotence. :devil:
Warm white rulez !
.

Monocrom said:

If a doctor told me I was allergic to lights, I'd get a 2nd opinion.

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ditto

I have something similar, but not a "true alergy".
When I go from indoors, to a bright sunny environment I will sneeze up a storm. 7 sneezes is not uncommon.
Doesn't happen everytime, but very often.
I was told, the bright light triggers "something" that my brain is interpreting as a nasal irritant and I sneeze away.
This is also why many people look at a bright light when they feel a sneeze coming on, it helps trigger the sneeze.
Wonder if this is what he experiences with the LED.

UberLumens said:

Does he get sick if he doesn't know the light is shining on him?

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Thats exactly what i'd like to try! Its such a big shame i dont know him in person (just a collegue of my girl) but im really tempted to get to know the guy just to be able to do these experiments... I could subject him to both high and low cri led light with and without PWM, some nice flickering fluorescent light and..... a STROBE! First time i actually found a use for that one :twothumbs

AnAppleSnail said:

What do you mean by "Allergy?" Does he get hives where the light hits?

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Nah, just nausia, disiness and headaches and the such.... I too find it strange this is called an allergy but thing might have gotten lost in translation/mouth to mouth stuff-wise....

MrBenchmark said:

He needs a second opinion because those symptoms can be indicative of very serious medical issues. (They can also be symptoms of totally trivial ones or even imaginary ones as well, which makes diagnosing them just super-fun, I'm sure.)

Flickering (your comments about PWM aside) would be the most obvious answer. A lot of people are quite sensitive to this.

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Heck yeah. imaginary conditions are best! Makes people look like idiots (oh wait, im not allowed to say this living with someone who has two master degrees in psychology )

Launch Mini said:

I have something similar, but not a "true alergy".
When I go from indoors, to a bright sunny environment I will sneeze up a storm. 7 sneezes is not uncommon.
Doesn't happen everytime, but very often.
I was told, the bright light triggers "something" that my brain is interpreting as a nasal irritant and I sneeze away.
This is also why many people look at a bright light when they feel a sneeze coming on, it helps trigger the sneeze.
Wonder if this is what he experiences with the LED.

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Erm.... The reation may not be all that uncommon, but always sneezing alot in changing light conditions may be an indication of something..... erm.. not 100% right? Who ever gave you the idea collecting and playing with flashlights would be a good idea with your condition (just kidding :twothumbs )


Ill send my girl out to interrogate the guy a bit more about what's really going on..... If the doctor actually literally diagnosed 'led light allergy' and the guy genuinely believed this i think we might just have a case of the dumb diagnosing the idiot.... to be continued!

That sounds ridiculous. That doctor's been reading too many ghost stories.

Geoff

I call bull. You're not getting any more of any color of light from an LED than you are from sunlight. Get a second opinion for sure.