Hi Sarah,

It's great that you found this group. We are here to be supportive,
listen and encourage and I want to thank all of the members who
have already shared things that they have found helpful in dealing
with light sensitivity from their own experiences.

I also want to express my sincere thanks to you, Sarah. You have
helped me immensely by sharing about Megan. I have learned a lot
from reading your messages that applies directly to my own problems
with light, so thank you for taking the time to share Megan's
story.

I have a lot of the problems that Megan has and I want to share the
things I have found that helped me. I sincerely hope that I can
share things that will prove helpful for you and Megan. I have
shared these things with friends who were living with the same
issues and they too have been helped.

First, I want to let you know you are right in suspecting that
Megan's photosensitivity the probable cause of her crying and
getting overwhelmed. I can tell you from personal experience that
it is overwhelming. For me, photosensitivy caused lazy eye,
sickeningly scrambled vision and hearing--overall sensory
integration problems, difficulty with motor skills and shakiness,
constant, neuropathy, excruciating pain and a myriad of other
seemingly unrelated severe health problems that resulted from
injuries that happened 11 years ago. It was so bad that I couldn't
function.

I went to countless doctors and got no relief. They tried many
different things including prescription lenses, vision training,
vision therapy, patching one eye, prisms in my glasses, balance
training, physical therapy.

After struggling with this for several years I met a wonderful
literacy expert who told me about amazing things that Helen Irlen
has been able to accomplish with colored filters. It took me 6
weeks, but I struggled through reading Helen Irlen's book, Reading
By the Colors, and felt that she could help me with my vision
problems. My doctors were so much against it that I didn't go for a
whole year. By then, I didn't care what they said. I needed help
and I was tired of being told that the damage was permanent, there
was nothing that the doctors could do to help and I would just have
to live with unlivable problems.

The first Irlen tests provided me with temporary colored overlays
and proved that I was a good candidate for colored filter lenses.
When I got my colored filters, it was a real, true, honest to
goodness miracle. Instantly, my eyes started working together.
Amazingly, I got my depth perception back the instant I put my Irlen
filters on. I could finally focus from near to far and back
again. I had not been able to accomplish any of that, in spite of
all of the long years of vision training and vision therapy.
Within minutes, I could feel my system calming down. My vision was
normal again and so was my hearing! No more garbled messages. The
migraine headache I had been living with for years went away. I the
light didn't cause that awful stabbing pain in my eyes that brought
me to tears. Withing an hour my whole system was calming down
remarkably. The shakiness went away. My muscles weren't
uncontrollable, tense and jerky anymore. I could actually move
the way I wanted to. I was thrilled.

My husband and children were thrilled to have me back to normal too.

The doctors were shocked. They didn't want to admit it, but in the
end, each one had to admit that the Irlen filters had done miracles
for me that they hadn't been able to accomplish.... so, especially
in light of the fact that you mentioned that the colored lenses
prescribed by Megan's optometrist have made a difference, I can't
help being hopeful that Irlen filters, because of their ability to
get a precise color prescription that will help her the most, will
help Megan with many of her problems.

It's hard for Megan to tell you what is wrong because she is so
young and she has no way to know that the problems she lives with
aren't "normal" since they are "normal" for her.

I also did some research and discovered that there are companies
that make special clothing for photosensitive people. That might be
helpful for Megan too. You might want to check out some of the SPF
fabric clothing that is available for toddlers and children on sites
like these. http://www.sunclothingetc.com/
http://store.sunprotectiveclothing.com/usinternational/

http://www.coolibar.com/childrens-child-swimwearplaywear.html

If you want to talk more, you can post here or talk by email or by
phone, I would be glad to help out in any way I can. Just let me
know.

Robin