Discussion Anyone experience Seizure, Epilepsy, Photosensitivity, etc?

[Deleted member 1141]

Last night, I think I had one of my worst attacks in awhile. At first I didn't attribute to it, but looking on it, it would see that Resident Evil 4 REMAKE, watching my friend play through it, Leon's gun fire (with the flashing associated with it), was causing me problems and I became exceptionally sensitive to light after that as well. I had mild headaches, eye strain, couldn't focus my eyes, "floater-like-objects" obscuring my vision, haloing, could see weird lights with my eyes closed,etc., and I had to literally rest for almost two hours before I was fine (but eyes were still bothering me).

I'm wondering if anyone else here experiences similar symptoms, and if so, what tends to be your triggers if it causes it?

 

[paranoodle]

Aw man, sorry to hear that

I have pretty minor photosensitivity (luckily with no seizures or epilepsy), but it's also usually semi-rapid flashing that triggers it. I tend to play with the lights on and on smaller screens, which helps a lot for me (big screens in the dark make it way worse), but even then sometimes full-screen flashing can get to me. I usually start getting a headache within seconds and some weird like... eye/brain strain that's hard to describe? I've never really found out if it can get worse, since at that point I always just pause and look away.

As far as I can tell, I've never had issues with muzzle flash for it (though I play very few gun-based games to begin with), but recently I ran into it in Octopath Traveler 2 (a certain mid-boss-fight cutscene has a lot of bright full-screen flashes and I had to look away and mash A until the cutscene was over) and DJMax Respect V (some of the MVs have really bright flashes so I just turned MVs off entirely, but there's also an option to dim them, I just didn't want to bother adjusting at the time).

 

[Síriocaz]

I think I've had epilepsy for most of life, but my seizures are so mild, that I didn't get diagnosed until a few years ago. It was a psychologist of all things who suggested the possibility during a consultation, based on my body language and reactions I had when confronted with emotional distress.

 

[Deleted member 2]

No, but I'm sorry to hear about it.

It's actually something I've consciously been thankful for. I sometimes think about how scary it would be to experience seizures.

 

[Stephen 776]

I don't know if it's quite the same thing, but the sensory processing disorder side of autism has something of overlap with photo-sensitivity; I'll hasten to add that my own personal tolerance is a bit better than what's described in the blog. Usually this happens with very bright lights--think lights you'd see in a club or something--and alternating lights--think pre-porygon anime "explosion just happened" flashing lights uggh. And I don't know if this is strictly a sensory issue, but God of War 2018 have just so much visual stimuli that my brain gets actively fatigued taking everything in (because autistic brains just cannot not take everything in); enough that I could only play a few hours at a time. I don't know how much of a trend that is among HD games.

As for the symptoms though? If it's transient enough I can usually get back to normal--like, flashing lights are annoying and cause pain, but aren't like, something I'd remember 15 minutes later. If there's prolonged exposure, however, at best I get fatigued until going into complete autistic shutdown. Over the years, I've generally avoided anything that stirs my senses too much, which thankfully, is usually easy enough with visual senses (auditory and olfactory senses, on the other hand ) .

 

[bixente]

I was diagnosed when I was 13. First I had Petit mal seizures, before a grand mal made everyone realise what was wrong. The seizures continued on and off for the next nine years before doctors found the right medication that have em controlled.

I despised the drug keppra. My mood swings were crazy. I'd scream at my family, burst out into tears, run away from home. So glad to be off it.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

My brother had grand mal seizures/epilepsy for many years and still has some now and again. He also has "brain fog". He's got it far more under control nowadays with drugs and a healthy diet but it's something he only got when in his teens.

Flashing/strobing lights don't trigger it for him, it's more a sort of thing that just arrives at random times for no real known reason.

And yeah, his drugs sometimes change his mood, but I got used to it more now. It was far worse at the beginning.

He used to game almost as much as I did and we used to compare notes on games all the time, sadly that's stopped for him nowadays, it worsens things for him and misses being able to game.