My mom used to suffer from incapacitating migraines which meant that she’d have to retreat to her dark bedroom with a wet washcloth and wait it out. She’d know one was coming on by the “aura” effect, seeing sparkling lights in her vision.
Apparently, I inherited her disposition to migraines, but I dodged a bullet and only get the aura with none of the pain.
Here’s what I’m experiencing:
A curve appeared in the center of my field of vision. The curve appeared to be built of smaller triangles, each of which was filled with a cycling rainbow of colors. The colors are muted, like the “oil rainbow” that appears on dirty water. Gradually, the curve grows larger and longer, until it occupies the outer fringes of my field of view. And it is there if my eyes are open or closed.
The whole process takes 10 to 15 minutes to clear. If I drove a car, this would be a huge problem, but I walk or take public transport.
I’ve been assured by people who should know that what I’m experiencing is similar to one of the effects of LSD.
I used to get those too, also without the pain. Now that I’m older I when I get one of those, a really nasty headache follows that lasts an hour or more.
I had no idea what they were until I mentioned them to a client who was a neurologist. She diagnosed it, and assured me that they were harmless. So now I just enjoy the pretty lights.
I just experienced my first one a few days ago. Had no idea what it was. I don’t get migraines and very rarely much of a headache. It was the zig-zag circle like this, but with the prism effect to it. It started as a half circle and grew to a full circle. Not sure what caused it. It’s been hot and I was probably a bit light headed and dehydrated. Who knows?
Man, I hate migraines! I also get the aura, followed by a bad headache. Luckily, mine are treatable by basic pain meds (Advil and Tylenol). But they stress me out and kind of mess-up my thinking.
My wife gets the aura but no headache. However, she also gets bad nausea, which I don’t. Once, when she was 7 months pregnant, she suddenly lost the ability to speak! It was terrifying! We rushed her to emergency and they determined that she had had a migraine that affected the speech centre of her brain. Weird and frightening!
I’ve had a few in my life, a few years apart. I get the aura for about 30-40 minutes and then the headache for an hour or two afterwards. The last time I got the aura I popped a couple Tylenol and downed a can of Pepsi with it, and I didn’t get the headache after the aura, so I guess the combo of acetaminophen and caffeine stopped it from progressing.
I have a constant migraine. 24-7. It’s “lovely”, by which I mean a special form of hell on earth. I envy you all profoundly. You should indeed rejoice in the fact that you are getting off light. (Get it? Light?)
I have long had the migraine auras, thankfully never accompanied by headaches. I used to get mild headaches not associated with the auras, but haven’t had one in decades.
My first migraine happened when I was on a subway platform on my way to HS. Scared me half to death, but just as everyone else reports, it expanded to the outside of the visual field and thereby disappeared. So by the time I got off the subway it was gone and I forgot about it. I used to get them maybe every couple months until I started taking beta blockers. Over the ensuing three decades, I had maybe one or two. Now I am off beta blockers and get them occasionally. I’ve had them while driving and it really doesn’t interfere.
I’ve had them on and off for almost 18 years (though fewer now). Only once has it happened when I was driving, but luckily, when I look in the distance, I can see well enough.
Sometimes got slight headaches afterwards, but haven’t in awhil.
I’ve gotten them twice, and both times it was on a hot, dry day. The first time I had just gone on an ill-advised hike that was steeper than what I expected, and the second time I had just eaten lunch at a Korean restaurant. I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard to focus on the check!
The first time I got an ocular migraine, I thought I was going blind or something. A sparkly dot ruined into a growing crescent of pulsating jagged shapes.
It expanded until it fell off the edge of my visual field, then WHAM! Sudden, intense, sickening head pain.
Now I dose up on the painkillers when the visual effects begin; usually, this staves off the worst of the pain later.
I too get them. What I get is sort of a kaleidoscope effect where nothing lines up. The worst is when I’m working and I have to explain to a patient that I am having trouble typing because I can’t read and I can’t find the letters on the typewriter but I am otherwise fine. I usually just wait it out for the 20 or so minutes until it goes away but I often have to ask people to read things to me because it makes it impossible to read, especially things like lab reports where you are trying to line up columns.
Mine are similar to when you look at the sun or a bright light and temporarily have a blind spot. I don’t see colors or anything. It’s really annoying, actually. The blind spot starts near the center of my field of vision and slowly moves to the periphery over the next 30 or so minutes. Following that, I usually get a mild to moderate headache that will last the next 24 hours. It’s like a headache from a hangover. If I don’t shake my head or jump around, it’s not too bad.
In college I had a psychology professor that also experienced auras. She pointed out that the side of vision with the aura and the brain hemisphere with the pain will be opposite due to the left occipital lobe controlling the right field of vision (and vice versa). This has seemed to be my experience, but I don’t know how accurate it really is.
Oliver Sacks wrote his master’s thesis on migraine headaches. It’s an enjoyable read–I recommend it. He discusses St. Hildegard of Bingen, who apparently had ocular migraines and thought she was seeing the city of Heaven.
A question I have: when I’m tired, I see dark “windmills” in my vision. I always thought everyone saw these, but once an acquaintance tried to convince me they were migraine auras. I think he was wrong. Was he?
