This is only the second aura I’ve ever had, after having standard painful migraines for many years. This one began about 5 minutes ago, as a little pea-sized area just to the lower left of where I’m looking. It looked very bright, complex and vibrating/shimmering. It’s been growing steadily, and is now about the size of my fist, with my arm extended. It’s roughly round, with very jagged, vibrating edges, kind of pale greenish-gold in color.
It’s getting hard for me to see well enough to type now. All in all, this beats the hell out of migraine pain.
Assuming you can read this…you’re not on digoxin by any chance, are you? I just ask because visual field shimmery disturbances in the yellow spectrum are classic in digoxin toxicity, and would warrant an ER trip.
But assuming you’re under competent medical care, uh, wow. That sounds kind of cool. Hope it stays with a fun light show and doesn’t start to hurt.
I’ve never had a migraine headache (and never want one!!!), but I’ve had these a few times. I’ve always heard them referred to as “visual migraines”. The last time I had one was 5-10 years ago. I was driving on the freeway when it happened. It didn’t distract me or disrupt my vision as much as yours seems to. I made a note of it, and kept on driving.
I had an appointment with my doctor scheduled for a day or two later, and mentioned it. He was concerned enough that he strongly suggested I make an appointment with my optometrist, and soon. The optometrist thought he was overreacting, but agreed to examine my eyes, and found nothing other than a bill for $100 that wasn’t covered by my insurance. He did send my doctor a letter stating that he found nothing out of the ordinary.
Your description sounds like mine. It started as a small bright spot, and grew until it faded out past the edged of my field of vision. It was shaped like the letter C, and seemed to have zigzag lines along the body of the curve. It was bright and shimmered, but I don’t remember any specific colors. Everything was completely painless.
Is it gone yet? Did it look anything like this? I’ve never had a regular migraine (as far as I know), but I an ocular migraine once, and had no idea what in blazes it was until someone here posted that picture. In mine, the white part was actually transparent, but that’s a pretty good representation.
HoD, that’s exactly what I saw. It was outside of the center of my field of view, and shifted if I tried to stare at it. The only thing is that mine seemed to “buzz” or “vibrate”. There was tiny, jerky movement going on inside the arc.
I’ve had the same thing a few times, but never with a headache. Used to think they were related to physical exertion. It seriously affected my ability to play badminton.
I too have ocular migraines with no headache. I see little shimmery zig zaggy bars making their stately way diagonally across my left field of vision. Being premenstrual used to be a trigger, I’ve had very few since going through the menopause, bright lights, noise and stress were also triggers. Whilst on Amatryptilene I had them every couple of months, far more than at any other time.
Despite not having the headache they make me feel decidedly out of sorts and inclined to go somewhere dark and cool for a while. Afterwards I generally feel empty headed and disinclined to do anything much.
I get them also and have for the past 15 years or so. It usually is triggered by very bright light, although it’s not frequent. Normally, if I’m in a dim room and happen to glance out the window at something brightly lit by the sun, it can trigger it. It usually lasts 10-15 minutes, and I always feel better if I just go into a dark room and close my eyes until it passes, as the impaired vision and jumping text is disorienting. I normally have a low grade headache afterward.
Ugh, I get those too. I hadn’t had one for maybe 2 years then I had two in a row last week. The first one I was at work and was surprised enough by it to call my midwife, who wasn’t worried. It went away after almost exactly 20 minutes, then I was mentally useless for about another hour but not sufficiently ill to go home from work (no headache). I hate them.
I had classic migraines with a similar aura (color difference: sepia) from age 15 to about 30. I then developed cluster headaches with a similar aura from 30 to about 45.
I was headache free for many years, then had the aura. Scared me bad. I never developed a headache, but instead had weakness, tingling, and pain along a band of skin and muscle in both arms. I thought I was having a stroke. I went to a neurologist. He told me this was common for older chronic migraine sufferers.
panache45, maybe you’ve passed the headache phase.
I get them, too, a couple times a year. For me, they can be triggered by a bright flash of sunlight reflecting off of metal or glass, exposure to mold or mildew, or getting something to eat with freshly grated nutmeg. It goes through my whole field of vision enough so I can’t read or do anything until it passes. The zigzags – sometimes black and white, sometimes with shimmering colors – make me think of traditional Hopi and Navaho art.
I’ve always thought my migraine auras were pretty neat (all 3 of the times they’ve struck me), until the left-side peripheral blindness sets in. And then the nagging pain and moderate disorientation hit me, and last for the next 24ish hours. uuugh.
I discovered that if I take two ibuporfen as soon as the visual disturbance starts, and am quiet in the dark, then the pain doesn’t come, and the disorientation goes as soon as the visual distortion passes.
I think of it as an electrical charge going through the neural nets of the cerebral cortex. Don’t know if that is remotely accurate or not.
It wound up lasting about a half hour, gradually expanding until I could no longer see it. Now that I’ve had two of these, the difference is interesting.
The first was a revolving sphere that was made up of intricate, constantly-moving “worm holes,” weaving in and out of the sphere. Everything had constantly-moving gold and black stripes. There were no straight lines whatsoever.
Today’s was all jagged straight lines, like it was made of shards of refracted broken glass. It was mostly stripes of black and pale green-gold, with beautiful highlights of pale blue, lavender and rust.
My mother used to get auras, and always described them as expanding diamond shapes, always the same. And she never had a migraine headache, just the auras. My two were distinctly different from each other, though each was beautiful, and followed many years of the debilitating headaches. I once had one that lasted 10 days . . . not only horrible pounding pain, but super-sensitivity to any sound or light. I wanted to blow my brains out, just to stop the pain.
The auras are beautiful and painless. The first time, I just lay down and fell asleep. When I awoke it was over. This time, when it grew to exceed my field of vision, it was over. I was out doing chores.
It’s amazing how the brain can create these intricately moving designs, independent of the objective reality the eyes perceive.
The first time I was driving and it started as a small blurry white triangle right in the centre of my vision which grew to cover about 1/3 of what I could see. I had to pull the car over & call my parents to come get me & the car. A massive headache followed - I had been under a lot of stress in the days prior.
The second started as a small glowy-sparkly-triangle-circle thingy that started at the lower left of my vision and slowly moved across and up to the top right. Light headache after. No idea what caused it.
With the second I found I could ‘look past’ it & be OK but if I concentrated on it the way it was moving/flashing would make me feel ill, like motion sickness.
Is that was that is? I’ve had this happen to me occasionally but there is never any other symptom (like pain) associated with it so I never connected it with a migraine. It only happens a few times a year and lasts about fifteen minutes so it’s not a problem unless I was trying to do something (like driving or reading) that required visual focus during that time.
I get these. The colors remind me most strongly of an oil rainbow, and the triangles “march”, like old school computer graphics “color cycling”. They appear right in the center of my visual field.
I am so lucky in that I ONLY get the visuals and have no pain. My Mom used to get debilitating migraines.
I used to get them all the time, along with horrible, pounding head pain, nausea, and fatigue. Along with the aura, I got what I would call ‘travelling numbness’. Usually starting with my fingers on one or the other hand, I would have a numb, tingling area that would ‘travel’ up, and sometimes into my face (even my teeth! That’s a weird sensation, lemme tell you). It doesn’t happen nearly as often any more…sometimes over a year will go by, and now I get the aura, and only a dull, low-level headache, but still nausea and fatigue. Oh yeah, migraines are frickin’ awesome.