That pretty well describes mine. Only happens 2-3 times per year. Sometimes it’s triggered by intense excercize, other times it seems random. The odd thing is that I had only one migraine in my life prior to age 40 and it was clearly stress induced. The 2-3 times per year only started after I began taking biologics (alfa inhibitors) for psoriasis. My dermatologist thinks it’s coincidental, and I have no reason to doubt him, it just seems strange.
I used to get “normal” migraines, with auras. They went away for years. Now I get ocular migraines (though I haven’t had one in a while). Mine have a blank spot in my vision that gets filled with an endlessly turning kaleidoscope. The worst part is I get intense nausea with them, usually, and they often lead to a weird, dissociated feeling and and headache that is also nausea producing.
Here’s my experience with them:
I suppose I should also say that the visual disturbance and the dizziness make it difficult to read or write while the migraine is ongoing, but I can walk around just fine.
Do any other ocular migraine sufferers have a family history of migraines of any type?
I think I’m the only lucky one in my family, that I know of.
I get ocular migraines (an optician called it a “retinal migraine”) about once a month but I don’t get headaches with it. But when I was a kid I used to get these killer migraine headaches, accompanied by nausea, etc. My mom had a history of migraines and then they mostly resolved when she found she was allergic to certain foods that seemed to trigger them.
My mother used to get fairly bad migraines for most of her life. She never had the ocular variety though. Lucky me, I get both.
My mother & her mother both suffered from severe migraine headaches, usually accompanied by nausea. My mother’s would go on for days where she would be confined to bed. Once she actually threw up I think she would recover.
Thank goodness I’ve only been stricken with the ocular type. The scintillating, vibrating, flashy kaleidoscope of a curve or “V” right in my line of vision. It gradually enlarges and widens until it expands beyond my vision. They make trying to work on a computer or read nearly impossible. 20 minutes or so later I’m back to normal.
These used to happen every month or two. No idea what triggered them, but I recently had begun to calendar then in the hopes of predicting them. I had a hysterectomy right at the end of last year and thankfully haven’t experienced one since then. Coincidence?
I have these as well - about once a month. Sometimes they are small, hardly noticeable, and I have no ill effects after about 30 minutes. Other times the aura will go away and I’ll be nauseous and have a pounding headache for the rest of the day.
I know when I’m about to have one as well. It starts off as a discoloration in my peripheral vision - sort of like if you look at something bright and then look at a dark background. It’ll be very small and then grow. Once it gets a certain size, it starts to flash silver and black.
Always in my peripheral vision. It can make doing just about anything difficult for about half an hour.
My father gets bad migraines - they aren’t ocular though.
All,
I was getting ocular migraines frequently until
I read about using Niacin. Both auras and small area temporary vision loss.
I take 500mg, time released daily and they have stopped.
You can also buy25 mg chewable Niacin to stop the migraine as soon as
The visual disturbance starts. Google Niacin and migraine,
Try it. It has changed my life.
They are a frequent visitor when I go to bed. I’ve reached the point where I almost enjoy them because of the color and movement that I see. During the day though, I rarely actually see them, I usually just can’t focus. I squint at everything. I think I am suffering one now, actually. Occasionally, i do see an expanding ring of color that changes as it grows. The last 20-30 minutes or so.
A blasty from the pasty.
I haven’t had one in a long long time now. Hope I haven’t just jinxed myself.
I hate the nasty little sawtooth flashy-lights. They aren’t painful but they’re freaking annoying.
Maybe once or twice a year, sometimes with flashbacks when I think they’re gone.
Thanks for the tip! And maybe that’s why rarely get the headache migraines any more. I’ve got more niacin in my diet than when I lived on nachos, popcorn, and corn dawgs.
I used to get them fairly frequently, in fact when I saw this was a zombie thread I searched to see if I posted here before, since it sounded familiar. Maybe I posted in another ocular migraine thread. Anyway, I haven’t had one for awhile. Maybe my diet has improved too. I remember the first time I got one, almost 20 years ago- I thought I had a brain tumor, scary :eek:
EDIT: and BTW my trigger seemed to be bright sunlight. Maybe diet is a factor too, but these days I wear sunglasses outdoors all the time, even on cloudy days. Not so much to avoid ocular migraines but because my opthamologist told me that eventually getting cataracts is not so much a question of if, but when.
Me too, solost. The annoying thing is that mine will start with just a pinpont of light, but right in the center of my field of view, so I can’t read.
But at lest I know what it is… now…
For years, I’d get a distinctive geometric pattern, but only a few times a year. I had friends who’d get terribly painful migraines, so I knew it couldn’t be that. And a “aura”? That sounds soft and fuzzy… I honestly thought there was probably something in my brain impinging on an optic nerve.
One day, I googled “migraine aura”, and there was my exact pattern! I was so relieved I shouted (in my worst Aaahnold accent)* “It’s nahhht a tumor!”*
My father indicated he had them when I mentioned I did. In my case, they’re more a pain in the neck, though I have found that looking into the distance makes them go away a little quicker.
So this is what a migraine is?
I get that once in a while. I have my whole life, or at least my whole adult life (and I’m 60 now). It’s really disconcerting, and it makes some things difficult or impossible. It doesn’t happen too often, fortunately. But enough that I’m completely familiar with the sensation and vision disturbances, and I know it will go away eventually. Probably within a couple of hours.
There’s no pain, I’m glad to say. Which is probably why I never realized that this is what a migraine is.
It is a *retinal *migraine, or possibly *ocular *migraine. There is also the migraine aura, a constellation of sensations that often precedes a migraine headache, and can include symptoms similar to a retinal migraine. The three things are not the same.
Most people associate the word “migraine” with a migraine headache. Almost always if you hear someone say “I had a migraine” it means they had a headache that has severe pain, often on one side of the head, near the temple, possibly accompanied by nausea, and increased sensitivity to light. I used to get them when I was young. They can be triggered by stress, lack of sleep, alcohol. They can last from a couple of hours to days.