fluorescent lights and sunlight

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Can someone be so sensitive to fluorescent lights and sunlight that by wearing sunglasses decreases the anxiety and panicky feelings you get in places?

Can someone explain why sunglasses help? I have this problem and came up w/ this solution but want to know why it works. Does anything else help (tinted glasses, etc., because I want to look less obvious. Wearing sunglasses into everyplace w/ fluorescent lights is going to be odd. Ex, restaurants, etc.

Fluorescent Lights really bugs me, as in being a complete migraine enducer as ell as the fact the noise they make drives me nuts.

Sunlight... not nearly as bad with the headaches, but I still flat out refuse to wear sunglasses because i end up looking like a complete tool.

I wear sunglasses all the time. I love them! It keeps out the UV rays. One thing I noticed about them. The more I wear them, the brighter light seems without them. I can't drive in the daytime without them. I wear them constantly, except at night. I don't know how tinted windows would help, unless in a car. Sunlight gives me a headache, so I need the tinted windows and the sunglasses, both. You could try wearing a hat with a brim, but that's obvious, too.

Go to an Optometrist's office and buy a pair of glasses with photochromic lenses, that automatically darken under bright light. If you don't need presciption lenses, they can probably sell you a demo pair in whatever frames you choose. They'll be more expensive than sunglasses, but if you take care of them, they'll last you years.

Be forewarned, with some of these lenses, when you step indoors from being in bright sunlight, it's like walking into a cave - you won't realize how dark the lenses got outside and when you come indoors suddenly, you won't be able to see your hand in front of your face until the lenses lighten up again. The ones I have now aren't so bad at that, but my old ones were...

Both of those cause me massive headaches. I've recently started wearing a hat everywhere and it has helped tremendously! My glasses also turn into sunglasses when I'm outside. but the hat has helped me be able to walk around stores and outside with no headache. Which is really a life changing thing for me because before this, even with tinted sunglasses, I couldn't walk more than 10 minutes outside without getting a headache. And inside stores was a nightmare, not only caused me a headache but also made my depersonalization worse (the dp still happens but less so, and I think it's from the noise and chaos of stores). Never tried sunglasses inside but the hat definitely works. I wish I had discovered hats about 20 years ago,

I just saw a video on YouTube about Temple Grandin & that was one of the things she talked about. She said that a mother told her that after she bought her ten year old son sun glasses, she was able to take him to the grocery store when before that, he would have meltdowns as soon as they got there because of the fluorescent lights.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgEAhMEgGOQ[/youtube]

My mother hated fluorescent lights and they were forbidden if incandescent lights would be used. I remember the flicker used to be very obvious to me when I'd go into department stores. Almost strobe like.

I've since out grown it to a large degree (and fluorescent light technology has improved), but it's funny, I can never keep my eyes open through the flash on my friend's digital camera. We've done double blind studies with this and this flash is just a few milliseconds too slow for me.

I'm only a little light sensitive, so wearing transition lenses is sufficient. (It also provides a conversation topic, because no one else my age seems to wear them, and people like to comment). So yeah, I recommend them.

I'm curious why being light sensitive would make you feel panicky, though? (For me, it just gives me a headache).

I wear a stylish looking hat, in the summer, and that keeps the sun out of my eyes.

Try getting test for Irlen syndrome, I heard this was common with autism and people have reported that with coloured tinted glasses, the panicky feelings go as well as them just darkening your vision a bit.

Hey there,

I wear sunglasses in the supermarket, in front of the computer, department stores, outside, inside.......anywhere.

I have gotten over the "looking strange" part of things......

I also have fibromyalgia which can make light unbelievably painful on top of the strobe effect of some lights. I was the same with supermarkets. Before I was dx AS(I am 36 and dx fairly recently) I strated having meltdowns about 2 years ago at 34 going in to these places. I had tolerated it for years before this but couldn't understand why my teeth were on edge or terrible foul moods ensued and headaches with furious eye rubbing. And since the fibro, it has become impossible. I would cry before going into the supermarket and myself and my partner had no clue what was wrong. It was just a supermarket, for goodness sake.

So by some instinct I donned sunglasses and ear plugs and I am great at going in now. Of course I now understand why.

Take care,

Mics

Fluorescent lights don't bother me too much, but I almost always have sunglasses on when outside. I have slightly tinted glasses that I use to drive at night. The headlights are too bright.

Can someone explain why sunglasses help? I have this problem and came up w/ this solution but want to know why it works. Does anything else help (tinted glasses, etc., because I want to look less obvious. Wearing sunglasses into everyplace w/ fluorescent lights is going to be odd. Ex, restaurants, etc.[/quote]

I guess that it is similar to too much noise, it causes sensory overload, which produces stress - hence anxiety. Bright light being similar (and I guess it would be more of a combination of the horrible buzz, the horrible flicker and the brightness of fluorescents???)
If so, (I'm no expert), then sunglasses reduce the overload and reduce your stress.

I recently realized that I walk around with my head down, everywhere, which I think is just to reduce the brightness of the light. Photochromatic (light changing) glasses are really good, but not sure if they will help with the fluorescent lights so much. Another option which may work are polarised glasses. These reduce all the light coming from one direction, and are designed to reduce glare. The last pair of sunglasses I bought are polarised, and I really like them - much better than ordinary sunnies. Again not sure if they will help so much with fluorescent, I haven't really noticed, fluorescents don't bother me too much.

You should be able to get clear polarised lenses, or them with a lesser tint, so they don't look like sunglasses. Talking to a good optomitrist, they should be able to come up with a suitable solution!!