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"This Monitor changed my life!"

Apr 18, 2023

Carly recounts her journey with Visual Snow Syndrome and how a Reflective LCD Monitor got her back to work.

A woman is holding a bouquet of white flowers in a field.

On May 14, 2021, I woke up to find a hundred floaters scattered across my eyes; a pulsating vortex-like image superimposed on sunny blue skies; negative afterimages from brightly-lit objects that persisted in detail for up to several minutes; and faint static in low-light conditions.

I had no explanation. I had just turned 30 and was in otherwise good health. I was stressed and sleep-deprived that spring, but that was normal. I hadn’t made any abrupt changes in my life.

White walls, blue skies, and highly-reflective surfaces suddenly became painful to look at. So did computer screens – and I was in the middle of managing my nonprofit’s biggest project of the year. I needed to understand what happened to me, and find a solution to keep doing the computer-based work I loved.

That panic-stricken month was my first step of a fascinating journey. I’m honored to share the story of how I learned about Visual Snow Syndrome, how I connected with the amazing Sun Vision Display team, and how the reflective LCD monitor has transformed the way I work.

Visual Snow Syndrome: more than just static

I had vaguely remembered my brother’s diagnosis of Visual Snow Syndrome in 2014 after a sudden onset of visual static. He was lucky: at that time, very few doctors knew about VSS. His doctor told him it was just like a migraine and sent him home with a long list of standard dietary restrictions that included processed carbohydrates, sugar, and dairy. As a college kid with a mandatory campus meal plan and a love of pizza, he promptly disregarded it, and slowly learned to forget that the static was there. I forgot, too.

When I dove into research last spring, I realized how much we as a global community have learned since then, and how far we have to go.

Visual Snow Syndrome is a neurological condition that results in abnormal processing of visual information. VSS normally manifests as static across the field of vision: seeing the entire world, 24 hours a day, through a buzzing haze like a cathode-ray TV between channels. Some sufferers are plagued with small floating objects, flashes of light, trailing images, persistent negative afterimages, or halos around light sources.

Non-visual symptoms include depersonalization (the sense of detachment from oneself); tinnitus; muscular pain and headaches; and anxiety and depression that result from the impediments to a fluid visual connection with the world around us. [1]

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floaters
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negative after images
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halos
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trailing images
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migraines
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VSS is rooted in neural processing, not the eyes themselves. My barrage of retinal scans and optic nerve tests at Johns Hopkins’ Wilmer Eye Institute showed perfect results. The ophthalmologists there never mentioned VSS when I described my symptoms, and I was far from alone.

As the Visual Snow Initiative writes:

"Historically, Visual Snow Syndrome has been one of the most difficult conditions to diagnose. As of 5 years ago, based on the thousands of individuals who had Visual Snow Syndrome around the world and the scientific data collected by VSS researchers, it is estimated that Visual Snow Syndrome was misdiagnosed 85% of the time. And this only included cases that were recorded by physicians and researchers at academic institutions or through the [Visual Snow Initiative] database. Thankfully, as of today, that number has declined to roughly 56%.

…Of those 85%, half of patients were given a diagnosis of having nothing wrong with them or no diagnosis. The other half were misdiagnosed with another medical condition…" [2]

Because of its varied and complex manifestations and origins inside the brain, no one knows definitively what causes it. Some people have it since birth; for others, like me and my brother, onset is sudden with unknown causes. Some studies hypothesize that VSS is connected with hyperactivity in the visual cortex. [3] Others implicate disruptions in communication and function across many parts of the brain. [4]

Over the past five years, thanks to increased advocacy and scientific research, the condition is becoming increasingly well-known. The Visual Snow Initiative has created a list of diagnostic criteria that people can bring to their doctors, offers a Visual Snow Doctors and Specialists Directory, and compiles the latest news and research as well as stories of those diagnosed. This level of public awareness and resource is a huge breakthrough; however, the search for treatments remains elusive.

The search for solutions

Dr. Yasser Khan, an eye surgeon and professor in Toronto, says that some doctors address VSS with anticonvulsant and antihypertensive drugs. [6] I didn’t want to go that route; I turned my attention to what I could do here and now to continue my work and my life happily.

I thought back to my brother’s diet list. With a passion for natural medicine and healthy food, I had already previously reached my limit with cutting out inflammatory foods like refined sugar. Nutrition and stress reduction are foundational and transformative approaches to most health imbalances. But at that time, between a breakup, two moves across three states, and a marathon of 15-hour workdays all happening within that month, stress reduction was a lost cause. I did what I could to improve my posture, suspecting a link between my known cervical spine misalignment and pressure on tissues inside my head. [7] But it was difficult to fine-tune my workspace ergonomics in my transient housing situation. So I began a search for technological solutions for computer use.

Although my trouble with backlit screens was aggravated by the acute onset of VSS, it was not new. For years, I worked with databases, conducted online research, and did writing and basic graphic design on a 13” computer screen with the brightness on the minimum setting. I knew I could work more effectively and happily with a second monitor, but I had yet to find an external monitor whose brightness settings were low enough for me.

I had been using the f.lux blue light-blocking computer program for about five years, and tried out blue-blocking laboratory glasses a few years prior. Both of these helped, but only a little: especially after my abrupt vision change, the main issue was the backlighting. It lit up my floaters and produced persistent afterimages, creating distraction and distress. Sometimes, if I looked at a white wall after viewing my computer screen, I could still read large text within the afterimage for more than a minute.

In college, I had read most of my papers on a 6-inch e-ink Kindle screen. Although using the arrow buttons to glide back and forth multiple times across each page of dense academic PDFs was tedious, it was worth it to avoid the time and expense of printing, and the headache of staring at a computer. Surely e-ink technology had advanced by leaps and bounds in the past decade! Alas, no. At that time, Dasung was the only company offering an e-ink monitor. I was tempted, but had serious reservations: the monochrome interface, 13 inch size, and slow refresh rate wouldn’t suit most of my work. Plus, the price tag was steep with little indication of solid customer service or support in case of product failure.

Then, on one last late-night burst of Googling, I came across something I had never seen before. A brilliant, thin, reflective screen used for outdoor signage, illuminated only by the sun. I was enchanted by the photos and videos of the screen. I immediately thought of hacking it to work with an HDMI cable, and sent a message to Sun Vision Display asking if that could work.

Sun Vision Display: a magical connection

Apparently I wasn’t the only backlight-allergic aspiring tinkerer in the world. Sun Vision Display had received several such inquiries, listened deeply to peoples’ needs, and innovated a product that the world had never seen. That November, SVD team member Caleb reached out to me asking if I was interested in trying out the world’s first-ever Reflective LCD monitor. I was over the moon. Within a month after our first phone call, the monitor arrived on my doorstep.

I’ll never forget the day I unboxed the monitor and turned it on. I had a video of an Indonesian rainforest, where I used to live, up on my computer. The 32-inch monitor glowed softly and radiantly, filling the room with the rich green hues of tropical leaves that kept pace with the subtly-changing sunlight streaming in through the windows of my house - just as the sunbeams had danced across the rainforest canopy in my former home. I was captivated.

The lighting reflected off the monitor just as it did every other object, adjusting with ambient lighting changes. I blinked normally while using it. I looked at it, looked away, looked back. My eyes were relaxed, and I didn’t experience tension headaches. I felt a sense of flow, ease, and creativity in my work. I didn’t stumble away bleary-eyed and burnt-out after unintended marathons of intense work as I was used to. With my Macbook and iPhone, the backlighting draws me in like a moth to a flame, dissociating me from my surroundings. This monitor, by contrast, felt like another part of my physical world.

Indonesian jungle on screen
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Carly working on computer

Photo By: John Doe
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A laptop is sitting on a patio table with a picture of palm trees on it.

And if that weren’t enough, it enabled me to work in my favorite office setting: outdoors on the deck. Not only does the monitor thrive in the sunlight of an outdoor work setting, unlike my laptop screen; it consumes such little power that it can run all day on a battery the size of a smartphone. As someone who is actively planning a transition to an off-grid home within the next few years, this monitor will enable me to continue my online work in the forest. And as someone who has worked in the sustainability and appropriate technology field my entire life, I love the product design: a robust, durable, beautiful metal housing; ultra-low power consumption; and a long lifespan, as backlight burnout is a main cause of external monitors becoming unusable.

But for me, that’s all just a bonus. Right now, I am simply grateful every day I use the monitor. As I continue to follow the rapidly-growing body of research on Visual Snow Syndrome and hope for a medical breakthrough for my eyes, I’m able to carry out my computer-based work happily and without headaches.

If you or anyone you know suffers from Visual Snow Syndrome, visual disturbances, or digital eye strain, I highly encourage you to learn more about this technology. Check out video testimonials from me and others, including a detailed review by MyDeepGuide, on the SVD website.

The RLCD monitor might just change your life, as it has mine.

Resources:

Visual Snow Initiative: https://www.visualsnowinitiative.org/
Eye on Vision Foundation https://www.eyeonvision.org/
Various support groups and forums on Facebook, Reddit, and Discord
What my world looks like now: a vortex in the sky, floaters, and low-light visual snow.

References:

[1] [2] [3] Visual Snow Initiative, Learn About Visual Snow Syndrome
[4] Caring Medical, Visual snow syndrome and neck instability
[5] Toronto Star, Visual Snow: seeing the world as if it is a static-filled, analog TV
[6] Dr M. Amir, Treatment approaches for visual snow; Caring Medical, Visual snow syndrome and neck instability

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"This Monitor changed my life!"

Carly recounts her journey with Visual Snow Syndrome and how a Reflective LCD Monitor got her back to work.

Visual Snow Syndrome: more than just static

static

floaters

negative after images

halos

trailing images

migraines

The search for solutions

Sun Vision Display: a magical connection

Indonesian jungle on screen

Carly working on computer

Resources:

References:

Want to know more about Sun Vision Display?

Leave us your info, and we'll get right back to you.

Sign up to our newsletter

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