How’s that for a gripping headline? On a serious note, I wanted to relay a message to the parents out there. Recently, my 4 year old son started exhibiting some serious eye twitching and winking. It was really starting to freak us out (okay, I freaked out, while my wife remained level-headed). We went to the doctor, and then I went online (big mistake), but no answers were to be found.
After several days, we realized what might be the cause. For Christmas, our son received an LED flashlight. These flashlights are sold for kids and are covered in characters such as Buzz Lightyear and Lightning McQueen. Our boys have always been readers at night–we give them a flashlight and they read in bed. I don’t know if these flashlights have warnings on them since we threw away the packaging, but let me tell you that they are BRIGHT! When you shine them on a white page in a dark room, you might as well be looking straight into the sun.
As an adult, I would know to angle the flashlight in such a way to diffuse the beam of light, but I realized that my son was focusing the light on what he was reading, and he might as well have been using a magnifying glass on a sunny day.
After a few days off from the flashlight, his eye twitching has decreased considerably. It’s not totally gone yet, but we are definitely encouraged. As a parent, you never think you need to be careful with something as innocuous as a flashlight, but those LED bulbs are amazingly bright.
Sorry for the off topic post. now we can go back to talking about our pop culture in a good light (see what I did there?).
I hope everything turns out all right. My two girls like to use those flashlifghts too.
Thanks. Fingers crossed, but the hard blinking seems to be getting better after a few days away from the flashlight.
My son has one of these but it doesn’t seem to be overly bright. Thanks for the warning though, we’ll keep an eye on him. It’s more likely eye strain that your Son is experiencing. He should be okay but I’ll keep him in my thoughts nonetheless.
Thanks Russ. The center of the flashlight lens we have is concave, to focus the beam of light much like a magnifying lens. That little “feature” seems to make a big difference.
Am glad you figure this out Brian that had to be scary for you buddy.