I see a migraine in my near future . . .

[Kris]

Because of everything I've been hearing about the new light bulbs, I've refused to use them. I can't see spending that kind of money on something that may or may not last as long as the old incandescents. But today Aldi had some on sale, and the bulbs in my "office" burn out *way* too quickly, so I snagged a package to try them out and see if these would last longer.

 

Frankly, I don't think they'll last an hour.

 

They've been in for less than thirty minutes and the flickering is driving me nuts. Is this normal, or is there something wrong with the fixture itself -- which might explain why the old bulbs were burning out so quickly?

[abbeyej]

Sounds like something is wrong with your fixture. We've been slowly converting over to CFLs over the last year. I have yet to have one burn out, and they don't flicker either. The only thing that annoys me is that it takes a split second for them to turn on and then a few more minutes for them to warm up to full brightness. But no flickering and no burning out.

[Ria]

I agree with Abbey. They don't flicker at all. They are just a tad slow to turn on.

 

Ria

[elegantlion]

We've replaced most of our bulbs and have had no issues with flickering.

[Kris]

Ah! Thanks! Sweetie's home this weekend -- I think I'll have him take a peek up there and make sure the wiring is okay.

[Free Indeed]

This may be your problem too- we we put some in our bedroom where we have installed a light dimming fixture and remote on the ceiling fan. When I turned the lights off at the dimmer switch (off-not trying to dim) they flickered and blinked and looked like a lightening show. However, they do not do this in the dining room where we have a dimmer. Our regular bulbs work great in the bedroom and we never had a problem with light bulbs burning out. :001_huh: Just a thought.

[LaxMom]

I vote for the electrical problem. I'm really sensitive to flickering lights - stopped having migraines, in fact, when I stopped working routinely in an office - and I have no trouble with the new CF bulbs. They're sometimes a little dim when I first turn them on, if the room is cold, but there is never flickering. We even have dimmable ones in our dining room chandelier and they're great, dim smoothly, and whatnot.

 

My ex put the old ones in the lamps 17 years ago, and those made me nauseous. These, not so much.

[laurad1125]

We've switched bulb types recently and haven't seen anything like you've described. While flickering light is one of my big migraine triggers (I rarely go to movies in the theater) I've had no problems with the new bulbs. YMMV

[Sharon H in IL]

Brands vary in quality. Stick with name brands, the cheap ones burn out quickly and don't look as good. I started with 'Bulbs of America' (made in China, btw) and now only buy name brands (probably made in China as well, but better quality control, I assume).

 

The flicker is probably because your fixture is on a dimmer switch. CFLs don't do dimmers as far as I know. Use a regular incandescent in those.

[hornblower]

There are new CFL's which you are dimmable. It has to say it on the package.

 

We have almost all CFL's and I've suffered from migraines for years & these are not triggering them at all. They should not flicker.

[Riverfront Headmistress]

I'll be the odd duck - I dislike the CFL lights. They aren't nearly as bright as the standard lightbulbs; its too bad because I dumped a bunch of money into the CFLs.

[kaylk in tx]

we put one in the breakfast nook ceiling fan and it drove me nuts flickering all the time. i had my dh take it out. i think it's because the fan needs to be balanced and that was causing the flickering. but we have had several of them burn out so i'm not seeing a big $ savings here.

[klmama]

Ours don't flicker, but they do seem to burn out just as fast as the regular ones did.

[Nicole M]

I started using florescent bulbs 15 years ago, and those early models did flicker something awful. Some of the cheapos flicker, even now. Mine last so long, that by the time I buy new ones, each time, the technology has improved and that next generation's bulbs are better. I think the bulb in my hallway has not been changed in 10 years. Hey, it will be like a time capsule when we open that fixture!

 

I buy most of mine at IKEA.

[orangearrow]

Try these:

 

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100527340

 

I believe this is the same brand we bought... either way, they're the DAYLIGHT bulbs from Lowe's or Home Depot. We bought them to replace the lights in our living and dining rooms. They are a bright WHITE light. White, white, white. It took us a few days to actually get used to them - it made the rest of our regular (supposedly "white") bulbs look dingy and yellow. The old bulbs also cast more shadows than these bright WHITe lights do.

 

Now, when you look in our living/dining rooms, it looks like the light from the windows is just shining in - everywhere (which it doesn't - we have bad natural lighting issues in those two rooms). And not in an unpleasant/glaring way - just a nice, constant, bright, clear light. The indoor pictures I take look a million times better too!

 

I used to get more migraines from our dull lights - plus I would get actually depressed from the dull/dark lighting if I spent too much time indoors. I haven't had any of those issues since we switched around 6 months ago (and the same bulbs are all still working). NO flickering either (we've had some of the old "new" flourescents that flickered something awful. I took those to the dump and went back to the old regular bulbs until my mom suggested these daylight lamps).

 

hths! :)

[The Girls' Mom]

I've noticed the flicker when I put them in any of our lamps. And it DOES trigger migraines for me. I use them in overhead lights without any trouble though. :001_huh:

[Kris]

I'm glad I made this post because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to remember when I bought these bulbs. Fortunately, my Sweetie was home early for the holiday, took the light fixture down to check the wiring, and everything was fine. After that first few hours, there was no more flickering anyway -- maybe they just needed to "warm up" or "break in" ? -- but we wanted to check and make sure everything was okay.

 

Well, of the three bulbs I bought, one of them is already burned out. I'm feeling "green" today, yup.

[Desert Rat]

Ours don't flicker and I was very reluctant to use them in our house because florescent lights do trigger my migraines. My dh really insisted so I gave in with the condition that if I have a lot of headaches they are leaving. Agreed. 5 months in and I haven't noticed any increase in my migraines. Thank goodness!

HTH