I haven’t done a poll, yet. I should have thought of that. 
Question: since I was a child, at times when I’m tired and need to sleep I get dark windmills in my vision. My parents both get them too, I suppose, because when I was little they said “windmills, you’re tired” like it wasn’t unusual. Is this an ocular migraine or something else that everyone else gets?
I get 'em frequently, if once a week is frequent, and they seem to happen when I’ve strained my eyes. No headache at all, just the silvery jagged shapes that block parts of what I’m trying to see.
The first one was scary, until I found out what it was.
I get them. I’ve had the headache three or four times, so I’m grateful that I get the aura instead.
The gray curtain you’re talking about used to be one of the three manifestations I would get with ocular migraines. Then I had a stroke and it became permanent, in both eyes. (In layman’s terms called right-field defect, I believe.) I still get migraines occasionally with the “heat-mirage on hot asphalt” wavy lines…don’t know if I’m still getting the gray curtain ones. :eek: Sort of a “if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound” kind of thing I guess.
Used to get them all the time but they’ve dissipated over the years. I’ve never had a traditional migraine with the overwhelming pain and nausea - just the visual aura. I’d get it, it would last roughly an hour or so and then I’d be left with a dull ache at the end. Eventually, I would start to recognize the symptoms at the beginning and pop a few advil for when it went away.
I get them occasionally. I’ve never had migraines or any other symptoms other than the visual one.
I’ve had them occasionally for the last 20 years. 2 Full blown migraines that made me want to die and the other few dozen were auras only so I still get nervous when they happen wondering if the current one is going to be full blown. They look very much like the link in the OP, start in the center of my vision and spread to fill it and then retreat to the edges and disappear.
Interesting. I feel sort of off, afterwards, but colors and shapes are very sharp and intense and I enjoy that sensation.
I’ve had them. I used to get ‘normal’ migraines which would knock me for six for several hours/days. After my children were born, I didn’t have a migraine for over ten years, so I thought they might have been caused by hormones.
As I approached menopause, I was in the city one day and started to get an aura (the first time in several years), which panicked me a bit because I had no analgesia with me. Bought some Nurofen Plus which I thought had done the trick but a few further episodes convinced me that I was getting the aura + other symptoms without the actual headache.
I still felt as if I’d been through a wringer, though. Lethargy ++ for the rest of the day, in addition to the usual nausea. Still it was waaaaay better than a full blown migraine.
On occasion. I recently had a smell aura for the first time: smelled like burnt butterscotch and I confirmed no one else was smelling that. I hate butterscotch, so I was overjoyed.
I’ve had them twice - the first time scared the daylights out of me, but then I found out what they were, and the second was just interesting. No other symptoms were involved. My doctor explained that a migraine can manifest itself in three ways, the traditional blinding headache, nausea of varying degrees, and the optical aura. The really unlucky can have all three, but it’s possible to have just two, or only one.
A nickname for these auras is “fortress aura”, as often they look like the outline of a medieval fortress. Quite pretty, actually - once you know you’re not going to die.
I’ve never heard of smell auras connected to migraines so I had to do a little research. That is pretty rare. I also didn’t know you can have taste and sound auras with them, too. I wonder if you only get one type per incident or you can have a combination? Anyone experience these?
I’ve been doing some reading about migraine auras today and haven’t come across anything like this. Sounds like it’s related to your brain needing sleep since you only get them when you are tired.
I’ve had two of these, the scintillating scotoma with “fortress” shape. Lots of colors. It blocks my central vision for a while and then slowly creeps out of frame over 15 to 30 minutes. It scared me to death the first time I had it because I thought I was losing my vision, maybe having a retinal detachment or something like that (which I am at risk for since I am quite nearsighted). I didn’t have any other neurological symptoms. Very creepy. I got scared with the second one too, even though I knew what it was by then. It just feels really bad to have the central vision obscured like that.
I’ve had a scintillating scotoma four times. I rode out the first one and figured it was some one-off thing. The second time, about a year later, I looked it up online and figured out what it was (reassuringly) pretty quickly. Since they talk about the frequency changing with age, I started a log on my computer to see if the frequency increased. So far, nope. Once a year for four years.
Three of the four I noted a bright flash of light trigger. (Headlight of car for one, glint of sunlight for another two…) In all three case, I was in dim lighting and the flash was very brief. For the sunlight one, for example, I was in a dark room all morning and I bumped the blinds letting a sunbeam through a crack briefly.
I’ve never gotten a headache with these. I’ve also never had a migraine, and I feel I’m rather less prone to headaches in general than other people.
They’ve all lasted for 30-50 minutes, moving across my field of vision slowly and only being a debilitating nuisance for maybe 10 or 15 of those minutes. Another 20 of those minutes, it’s just annoying to be missing some piece of peripheral vision, and the balance of the time it’s just noticeable.
The geometrical pattern isn’t always distinct for me, but it has been. Not exactly like any depiction I’ve seen, but with some of the same general features. I don’t get colors in the pattern, just bright whiteness and voided darkness. The artists depictions leave out something that is essential to the sensation, IMO, which is that the disturbance for me is not an image per se. That is, I wouldn’t describe it as something I see. It’s deeper than that. It’s a voiding of the concept of seeing in certain regions, and the so-described white bits are “twinkling white static” and the black bits are “twinkling black static”, for lack of any suitable description. But, again, not static like you would see in front of you. The twinkliness is just an added attribute to the hard-to-describe “deeper than actual vision” sensation.
I get them regularly, but not the headaches. Like you I’m grateful for that.
I think I have experienced the bees! I thought it was something to do with my sight and went to the optometrist who did a whole bunch of tests (for detached retinas or something like that?) but it turned out my eyes were perfectly healthy, except for the wonky eyesight. So I concluded it was probably a migraine.
There are other presenting aspects - when our son was 12-13ish, he started getting episodes of vertigo. We had him to the doctor (inner ear infection, probably), ENT specialist (hmmm, not really sure). It was very stressful, and not only was he missing a lot of school, he was starting to get headaches (icepick/cluster headaches). Eventually our GP sent him to a neurologist. After a battery of tests to test and monitor his vestibular system, she came out and said “there isn’t a problem with his balance system - that all works fine. He is probably getting vestibular migraines - instead of an initial visual aura, his balance system is affected. It isn’t common, but it does happen.”
Off to the migraine clinic and on to some suitable drugs (strong painkillers and beta blockers to start with), and the problem is much more manageable (not perfect, in his early 20s he still gets migraines that can last a week or more, but not often).
So, migraine effects without the headache (at least to start with) - definitely.
I get about one migraine per year - usually it’s the headache without aura, but last time it was the aura without headache.
I used to get horribly painful migraines. One lasted 10 days, and I just felt like pounding my head against the wall.
Then, a few years ago, I started getting auras . . . NO PAIN!!! With me, it starts with a tiny faceted gold circle, near where I’m looking. It grows, and becomes something 3D-looking. The main color is gold, and there’s also some pale green and a touch of lavender. It’s constantly vibrating and scintillating and sparkling, like a spherical crystal. It keeps growing until it fills my range of vision, then keeps getting larger until it just vanishes. This takes about 20-30 minutes.
There’s something else I’ve been experiencing for the past year or so, and I have no idea whether it’s migraine-related. I see a tiny point of light moving across my peripheral vision, in any direction. It never moves in a straight line . . . either curves or up and down like a roller coaster. It takes about 4-5 seconds to cross, then disappear. It’s just a tiny point of light with a tail, kinda like a sperm.
My mother used to get auras too, without pain, and hers were diamond-shaped.