Are your lightbulbs making you sick? Mine are.

I've narrowed down my migraine triggers and found that one of the constants in my life has been CFL or compact fluorescent light-bulbs. Just like any fluorescent lighting, they create an imperceptible flicker that can trigger migraines, epileptic seizures, fatigue, anxiety etc. Then there is the fact that they are highly toxic if broken, and that even with their internal anti-UV coating they still emit UV radiation as the coating almost always has cracks in it, permitting UV leakage, at least the curly compact ones. They may use less power, but they are wrecking the health of a lot of people and are a toxic hazard to your children or pets (or you) if broken, and they leach mercury into landfills if not properly disposed of.

Thankfully there's a company here in the US called Newcandescent which sells incandescent lightbulbs because they are specially made "rough service" bulbs; in other words they are nowhere near as fragile as typical incandescents and are therefore a necessity in industries where lighting needs to be able to withstand a lot of vibration and rattling and still hold up. These bulbs have an average lifespan of 10,000 hours or over nine years, and you can get one for $2.95, where an incandescent of the standard size/voltage/wattage from Wal-Mart will set you back about fourteen dollars.

Yeah, the company does play up the "paranoia of big government" angle in their youtube videos a bit but when you look at the scam that we've been sold about these "eco-friendly" CFL's, I can't say that I really blame them. There's all this rhetoric about sustainability, yet we're being pressured to fill our homes with highly fragile vessels of gaseous mercury that have been linked to a myriad of illnesses (including my chronic migraines) and must be disposed of as "hazardous materials" (just look, it says so right on the bulb), someone please tell me how is that sustainable? You don't have to take my word for it, just google the health hazards of fluorescent lighting.

LED lights FTW? They are getting cheaper finally, use less power, and do not produce any (or hardly any) heat and should last a longer time too AFAIK!

Adder wrote: LED lights FTW? They are getting cheaper finally, use less power, and do not produce any (or hardly any) heat and should last a longer time too AFAIK!

They can also be pretty harsh on the eyes as well though, LED light isn't omnidirectional and as such tends to be more focused, adding an additional need to shield them with a diffusive material. Lightsaber blade plugs are your friend.

Health risks of LED lights

That having been said, it's a technology that is still evolving. But I think I'd much rather have long lasting incandescents backed up by home solar panels/battery for energy efficiency until a healthier low energy replacement comes along.

When I worked for JC Penney for the first two weeks I was violently sick in the store. I finally realized it was a combination of the lighting and the chemicals they were spraying the clothes with to keep them bug free. Some lights will still trigger me but nothing in comparison to what I experienced there. Lights can totally cause problems.

In my apartment at University, they use the shittiest lights for their "ceiling" lights.. It feels like I'm in a mental asylum.

And, I bought some lamps with good, high quality bulbs... they emit warm, orangey light. And, I feel SO much better all the time now. One time, a friend came over and turned on my over heads, and I almost strangled him. I was like: "please... PLEASE don't turn those on..."

The flicker is down to magnetic ballasts: electronic ones do not have that problem and operate in the 10s of khz range, a significantly higher frequency than the human eye can discern.
As to the UV radiation, if it were notable you'd get a tan or burns. The radiation is minimal, and people use UV fluo lights in their homes for all sorts of exotic plant and animal life, it's also used as a non-chemical germicide by the food and health industries. UVB is also what causes human skin to produce vitamin D, something most of us need more of.

The main problem I think is with the colour spectrum. CFLs are mostly green and orange and not much of anything else. Other lamps usually have better distribution (which is probably better for our eyes), but still are nothing like daylight, which has a lot more blue. Funnily enough, people usually don't like daylight lamps.

The most efficient light source is low pressure sodium, which is also appreciated by astronomers as a light source due to its emissions being on one wavelength only, significantly reducing light pollution. They're the old fashioned orange street lights. You wouldn't want one of those in your living room though.

Problems at the office will more likely be caused by laser printers, which emit ozone. In an enclosed space that's pretty bad.

Ah and photovoltaic panels are not only environmentally costly to produce, but also contain things like cadmium, and a lot of it per watt produced.... And they're putting this stuff outside on people's homes, on garden lights and calculators. There's only one industry which successfully tracks its waste and considers the byproducts, facilities, and containers for the waste as waste and safely guards all that stuff from the common unable-to-read-the-safety-notice moron: the nuclear industry. And even they occasionally screw up too.

All good points to be considered. Thank you.

The only light that has ever given me headaches is the light from my phone or laptop.
Both of these devices now have applications on them that change the spectrum of light emitted to decrease the blue light, so gradually as it gets dark outside everything on my screen turns orangey. It makes videos look a little odd, but no more headaches.