Laser light is literally making us sick!!!

Mohrenberg said:

Induce vomiting before working on your laser projector. Then you've got nothing to worry about when you become nauseated from working on it.

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I suggest Ipecac.. make sure you get it all out!

I think you guys got it wrong there...Halloween displays are supposed to scare everyone else sick, not the ones doing it.

I have epilepsy. My seizures are not visually triggered ( less than 5% of people with epilepsy are visually triggered) but this info might help. It talks about strobe lights but it applies to any frequency of flashing light.

"Most strobe lights on sale to the public are factory-limited to about 10-12 flashes per second in their internal oscillators, although externally triggered strobe lights will often flash as frequently as possible. At a frequency of 10 Hz, 65% of affected people are still at risk. The British Health and Safety Executive recommend that a net flash rate for a bank of strobe lights does not exceed 5 flashes per second, at which only 5% of photosensitive epileptics are at risk."

Basically flashing lights between the frequencies of 5 to 30 flashes per second (Hz) are most likely to trigger seizures. For some reason once you get up around 35 Hz and higher the ability to trigger seizures drops off. The ability to trigger a seizure also depends on color, contrast, field of vision etc. For example a random movie with 25-30 frames per second wont cause any kind of epilepsy but if it was just a video of white and black alternating at that frequency it could cause a reaction in people with photo-sensitive epilepsy.

dizziness, disorientation, confusion...

Some people pay a lot of money to experience that.

GoolGaul said:

dizziness, disorientation, confusion...

Some people pay a lot of money to experience that.

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You just described how I feel every morning until I have some coffee.

InfinitusEquitas said:

You just described how I feel every morning until I have some coffee.

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haha, I know what you mean.

My guess is motion sickness, I have experienced this while watching other people play games on a big screen in a dark room.
it's your brain on lasers moving around, turn the lights up while working with them, once they are set up you will be concentrating on them and not your work so the problem should go away or be lessened or take some Dramamine.

if you guys are watching for certain things on your projector it might me a visual tracking issue, much like people have who play too much guitar hero or robot unicorn attack. i see walls moving all the time, some of the time its when im playing the aforementioned games. But like all old salts will tell you, when you get see sick... gaze at the moon

I haven't read the whole thread, but I've read through most of it. Post us some pictures of your set-up, that'd help us diagnose it, and, even if we're all sure it's motion sickness, it'll give us something fun to look at!

A thought on the matter, what's this projector being used for? If you're using it for a party... well, be careful. If it's making you guys sick in 10 minutes, imagine what it'd do to people who are dancing and drinking alcohol. You'll potentially have a nasty, smelly mess on your hands which you'll then have to clean up.

Whatever you decide to do, keep us updated. This seems like an interesting project.

My daughter and I both have the same thing going on. Here's the deal though. I was adjusting the focus on my green 5MW eBay special when I started noticing this problem myself.

I was thinking it must have been from earlier when I forgot to wear my glasses, but still wanted to see if perhaps I had caused it wen I did my adjustments.

Just then, my 10 y/o girl walked into the room, noticed I had my lasers out, put on her goggles, and started watching. Not ten minutes later she told me she was starting to get sick. (I'd never mentioned my issues with it to her.)

I told her to go ahead and leave, that she'd be ok. (She was.)

Now it seems as if I can't even fire one up anymore without feeling a little sick right away.

I've always felt the effect to a small degree, but it wasn't until I started experimenting with lasers myself that I noticed it was a problem.

Here's what I've determined so far.

Any color of laser can do this to me, but green seems to be the one that initiates the feeling quickest, and with the worst onset. Also, the feeling is immediately brought on if the beam happens to cross my visual path. If this happens across the cornea for ANY length of time, immediate pain and onset of this feeling occurs.

I am not epileptic, but I DO seem to be aware of the "flickering" within the beam. I don't know if sensitivity to this is causing the effect or not, but I do feel it plays at least a part since this effect seems to make the nausea worse if you are already experiencing it.

Ultimately, I'm thinking that accidental or irresponsible exposure of the beam to the optic nerve, is really what might have caused, or is, causing this.

That said, I don't know how one might cure or fix this other than to wear safety goggles rated for your laser, use caution when entering areas where laser light is used, and limit yourself to laser exposure in the future. (Kind of a bummer when you're wanting to create a really cool light show though!

Feedback is always great, I'd love to hear more on this. Perhaps someone out here's an optician who might be able to lend a clue?

I wouldn't be too quick to close the thread though as I'm sure this is a more common occurrence than most might think. (I doubt if many people who get sick from lasers play with them much!

Anyway, got to go illuminate a razor!

TTYL

I wonder .. would strong flashlight affect you the same way ? What about trying to put a color filter on it ?
I doubt eye can distinguish coherent light from non-coherent. The effect could depend on the color, but I would guess the movement of the dot is to blame. After some time, you can develop automatic reaction, so it might be hard to test. I mean you could get sick only by talking about lasers and so on (I have that with politicians .. just hearing the name makes mi sick, without seeing them or listening to them :beer.

Nope! Not a flashlight. I just shined a pocket LED (4.5v) right into my eyes for a second. Even waved it around a bit. Wait....? Yep! Starting to feel a little something now. Just a little bit though. I'm betting if I'd done it longer, I'd have had more effect.

Okay, let's go back a little further...?

Batman! The Dark Knight - I remember when it came out, I took my family to see it in IMAX. I had to leave about twenty minutes into the picture because I felt nauseous.

Looking looking over my life at the time, my experiences told me the feeling was related to the movement on the screen, and my "sea-sickness."

I have no reason to second guess this now since I've had it all of my life. The feeling is probably identical, (No, I'm not going out on a boat to find out!)

So, my deduction at this time is going to narrow just a bit, in that the light is in fact somehow probably affecting the area within the brain associated with our spatial orientation.

Here's a page from the FAA on the phenomenon. Hopefully the forum will let it post. If not, it's on the faa.gov website, pilots, pilot safety, brochures, pdf.
http://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/SpatialD.pdf

Anyway, hope this helps a little more.

If its a sea sickness kind of thing, I second trying out some sort of meds. I always use Kwells which seem to work great for me. Or if you don't like the idea of drugs I've heard that ginger and ginger tablets are good for that kind of thing but I've never personally tried them.

I've go new set of lasers coming in the next few days. I'll try out a bit of Dramamine or something similar, before I check them out. I'll post my results.

I don't know if anyone is still monitoring this post, but in case there is I've got a little experience with this phenomenon.

I do experimental work every once in a while using a variety of common wavelength lasers and early on I noticed that I too get nauseous "whenever one is in use around me." I don't even have to be looking directly at it. Sometimes just being in the same room is enough to make me feel like I just got off the Tilt-o-whirl at the local carnival. My daughter is the same way only not quite as sensitive to the negative effects as I am.

I've tried to research this quite a few times with no real answers to be found. There are a few different ideas as to what is happening, but no clear consensus. Personally, I think it has something to do with the "brilliance" of the light. There's something in the spectrum that I can sense is too strong for me to tolerate. I do know that it's not due to any form of Epilepsy though. I base this opinion on medical research I've done as well as my own medical history.


I have noticed that different wavelength's DO have different effects although all will make me nauseous to some extent.
630-650nm Red lasers are the most tolerable, while 532nm Green causes me the worst dizziness I've ever felt in my life.

I don't really have any advice other than to minimize exposure to the light. The suggestion of wearing goggles is good as many commercially available lasers emit dangerous levels of infra-red and ultra-violet radiation, but in your case that would seem a bit counterproductive. So simply limiting your exposure is about all you're going to be able to do to minimize the negative effects you are feeling.

I know this isn't much help, but at least you know that you're not the only ones out here with the problem.

policetac said:

many commercially available lasers emit dangerous levels of infra-red and ultra-violet radiation,

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Ok the IR part is true, but the UV one isn't. Very few lasers available emit UV radiation.

-Alex