A year ago, my January was particularly crowded with work deadlines and court prep. And hoo boy did I get visual migraines! I think I had about five in three days at the peak period.
This January, things have been much less stressful, and visual migraines have been very rare. Only one that I recall (unfortunately, right in the middle of a court hearing, but at least not when I was up.)
So I’m lead to the conclusion that they’re stress-related. Or maybe, lack-of-sleep related, which often is a side-issue of stress.
Mine are stress, light (especially very bright pinpoints and flashy lights) and lack of sleep–put all three together and I resign myself to being functionally blind for most of the day.
Stress, flashing lights and weather changes are my biggies, mind you I am not sure if it is the weather change itself or the impact that they have on my lung disease, bad lung times usually have migraines barging through, of course bad lung times are highly stressful so it may come under that umbrella anyway.
Migraines also have a Psychosomatic cause. People who are sure they get Migraines from MSG (actually, not a common trigger at all) can give themselves one if they think there is MSG in the food- even if there isnt.
I never had frequent migraines, but I had occasional whoppers when young. Curiously, the worst came after stressful events were over (like final exams in college).
My migraines essentially disappeared a long time ago. I still occasionally get visual auras (sparkly lights at the periphery of vision, some blurriness) but they’re no longer followed up by headaches.
There are tons of potential triggers for migraines, and the success of treatments varies widely among individuals.
I’ve not found any similar good studies that focused solely on ocular migraine triggers, but I think it’s probably safe to generalize from this data and say stress is probably involved in many of them.
I had ocular migraines twice. The first time was during a very hot, smoggy, hazy and glaring day. I was signing a credit card slip at a restaurant and couldn’t figure out why my vision suddenly seemed occluded by light patterns. It felt like the afterimage of a glance at the sun.
The second time I had just finished an unexpectedly steep and stressful hike. A trail that I thought was flat turned out to go right up the side of a steep hill. As we drove back home, exhausted, I got the same light patterns in my vision. I had to stop driving and asked my husband to drive instead. When we got home, I laid down and the scotoma went away in about twenty minutes. I felt addle-brained the rest of the day, though.
Interesting–my doctor never suggested a beta blocker for the migraines, but I do take one now for high blood pressure and I think it might be helping, now that I think on it, I don’t seem to be having all that many migraines. The beta blocker also serendipitously helped with my anxiety issues so I think it’s a good choice for me on a whole slew of fronts!
I get (or used to - luckily they are quite rare now that I’m through menopause) both “visual migraines” like the OP describes and full-on I-want-to-die-now-thank-you migraines.
My anecdotal report is that for me the visual ones often seem to have an easily identified stress trigger. The regular kind, not so much.
ETA - I heartily endorse beta blockers for migraines and stress management. A doctor put me on a daily dose in my 20s and while it might be a tad hyperbolic to say “it changed my life!” it did vastly improve how I felt.
Following an operation in around 2008 I had very frequent visual migraines (two or more per day) for two weeks following. Several drugs were prescribed for me with no effect before I took naratriptan. After that, I had no further migraines until years later (and those were just normal, one-off, migraines).
When I was young (5-20) I got severe migraine headaches accompanied by nausea, which would sometimes last up to two days. Triggers were emotional stress and lack of sleep (also tooth pain–I was absolutely miserable the first couple of days I got braces). I outgrew the headaches but in my 30’s started to get ocular migraines from the same triggers.
Never had ocular migraines. Sadly, I get the other kind. As CairoCarol said, the kind that make you want to kill yourself. Stress could cause them, but my most common and consistent trigger is hormones (I’m a woman). A woman I was talking with years ago said her migraines went away with menopause. Again, sadly, mine didn’t. I don’t get them every month, as I used to, but when I do get one now it commonly lasts two or three or four days. Triptans are the only thing that’s ever worked for me.
I used to just get the vision distortion, but a few years ago I had one that was accompanied by aphasia (impaired speech) which made me think I had had a stroke. That led to an ER visit and an MRI. No stroke, but they did discover a couple of very old aneurysms. So now I get an annual MRA to keep tabs on them. My oculars are normally triggered by bright lights. . .sort of. The aftermath is usually a low-grade headache and tiredness.
