hi guys, long time lurker here… i know fluorescent lights are evil (they recently just started to affect me), so was wondering if anyone has had issues with the other types of lights? ie. LEDs, halogens, etc. i know everyone’s different, but i’d like to hear which lights some of you guys can tolerate? i’m looking to buy a desk lamp to put near my monitor (which is another issue). thanks!
Since artificial light was my primary problem (before topamax) I did quite a bit of testing with lighting. I was suprised to find that even though flourescent lighting bothered me the most, incadescent lighting still bugged me a ton too. It was pretty much any direct lighting that bothered me. I found the less direct the lighting was, the better I could tolerate it. So anything where I could diffuse the light by pointing it away from me and reflecting it off of a ceiling or a wall helped me out.
I did seem to find that the lightbulbs that tried to mimmic daylight seemed to bother me a little less, which makes sense since daylight doesn’t bother me at all.
i’ve done a ton of monitor testing if you want any of my opinions on those. I can fill up a few pages on that subject. 
Incandescent bulbs are the only way to go for me. Flouresent and LED are the worst and Halogen isn’t much better.
Sarah
Interesting. Sarah, do you happen to know why you find LED to be so bad? I know why LED monitors are bad, but it isn’t because of the lights themselves it because of how the LED light is dimmed, not because of how the light is produced. The LED light itself should theoretically be better for mirainers than flourescent light because it shouldn’t flicker the way flourescent does. LED monitors on the other hand intentionally strobe–that is how they change brightness, so they are disaster on migrainers.
I have not tested LED light outside of an LED monitor. I have tested my LED monitor at 100% brightness when it does not strobe and I haven’t found the LED light to be any better or worse than any other normal light for me, but it’s definitely better than flickering flourescent light.
I’m bothered by too bright, too dim, too glaring, and in the rare case of (usually dying) old-fashioned fluorescents, flickering. More on some days, less on others.
Changed all our energy saving fluorescent lights in the house to " Warm white LED 9watt lamps". Haven’t had any problems with house lighting since. However, still use indirect lighting quite a bit. Topamax has increased my tolerance to fluorescent lighting in supermarkets but cycling behind someone today with a very bright, flashing rear light triggered a migraine headache & nausea within a few minutes!
Barb
Barb, just yesterday I installed some (bloody expensive) candelabra-base flame-shape LEDs in a paddle fan’s light fixture. The couple I was working for found that two of them buzzed and one did not.
There were the same brand, and both claimed to be dimmable. The silent one was more toward a warm white (specifically, it claimed to emit light around 3000 kelvin equivalent). Of the buzzing ones, one had a clear bulb and one “white”–what I am used to calling “frosted.” Both of them claimed a 5000 Kelvin shade, what sometimes is called “bright white.” The husband ran back to the hardware store and bought two more of the 3000 Kelvin LEDs, and (after I’d already been paid and stowed my ladder back in my truck–but they’re a nice couple) I installed those, successfully.
I don’t know that what such high-pitched buzzing is or isn’t related to what gives some migraneurs problems with LEDs, but perhaps . . .
I’m certainly glad they work for you.