Understanding light sensitivity and photosensitive epilepsy

What the conditions are, what tends to trigger them, and how people manage them today.

Photosensitive epilepsy

Flashing or flickering light, and some high-contrast patterns, can trigger seizures. Around 3% of people with epilepsy are photosensitive. It most often starts between ages 7 and 19, and it's more common in females than males.1

Light sensitivity in migraine

More than 80% of adults with migraine find light uncomfortable or painful during attacks.2 Chronic migraine, with headache on 15 or more days a month, affects an estimated 1.4 to 2.2% of people worldwide.3

Common triggers

  • Sunlight, and reflections off water, snow or glass
  • Fluorescent tubes and bright LEDs
  • Screens with fast flicker or rapid scene changes
  • Strobes, emergency vehicle lights and fireworks
  • Striped or geometric patterns

How people manage it

  • Medication prescribed by a doctor
  • Avoiding known triggers
  • Tinted lenses such as the Zeiss Z1, which have the strongest evidence for photosensitive epilepsy4
  • Screen settings and filters
  • Hats and visors outdoors

Talk to your neurologist or GP before changing how you manage your condition.

Where Lensare fits

Lensare is being developed to sit alongside these measures, not replace them. It responds to sudden bright light and to flashing or flickering light. It can't detect patterns, flicker in a small part of your view, or some dim red light, and it hasn't been clinically tested.

Interested in research? If you're in New Zealand, tick the research box when you join the waitlist. Studies only begin after ethics approval.

  1. Epilepsy Society (UK), Photosensitive epilepsy. Back
  2. Villar-Martinez M.D. and Goadsby P.J. Dim the lights: a narrative review of photophobia in migraine. touchREVIEWS in Neurology 2022;18(1):14–21. Back
  3. Natoli J.L. et al. Global prevalence of chronic migraine: a systematic review. Cephalalgia 2010;30(5):599–609. Back
  4. Capovilla G. et al. Suppressive efficacy by a commercially available blue lens on PPR in 610 photosensitive epilepsy patients. Epilepsia 2006;47(3):529–533. Back