I don’t think any of mine are overly strange, but considered together they often are. I get bright pinpricks of light in my vision (both eyes), and a dark crescent shape in the bottom of my vision (right eye). At the same time, my vision is better then than it usually is - I can see the individual pixels on my laptop, from my normal working distance! I get auditory hallucinations, too. Not any recognizable sound, but rather a translation of pain into sound.
I get confused and will say the wrong words a lot. I can’t make decisions. But my creativity is higher; I can write palindromes when a migraine is starting. My mind races and I talk really fast.
As it builds the entire right side of my body goes weak and numb. I get the numb tongue, too, and the right side of my mouth will pour with saliva.
Oliver Sacks, as a student, wrote a thesis or dissertation or something about migraine headaches, and it was published as a book. In it, he recounts another doctor’s story about a patient whose skull plates actually moved apart while she had migraine, from the pressure inside her head.
The book is called The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and the essay about migraine headaches was actually an essay about a particular middle-ages nun who had religious visions which were actually, as we think today, caused by migraines. Some of her illustrations of the visions are included, as well as a lot of boring chatter about them. One of the dullest parts of the book IMO. Far more fascinating were the rock and roll drummer who used his full-body Tourette’s tics to his advantage to become a master of both ping-pong and Keith Moon style wild drumming. Or the “artistic” savant. Or the highly successful musician and college music teacher who could no longer recognize individual items or faces visually; as the star of the title story, he famously attempted to pick up his wife like a hat and put her on his head in Dr. Sacks’ office. Or the ex-WWII-sailor who couldn’t remember anything that occured between 1943 and fifteen seconds ago. I won’t spoil the endings to these stories, as you’ll find them fantastically interesting if you’re anything like me.
jjimm, that’s a great animation! It really captures the experience. That’s more what the one I had yesterday was like. You’ve inspired me to find an animation program to play around with now
Like others here have said, I also get instances of aphasia afterwards, and I’ve heard that the big/small potions in Alice in Wonderland were probably inspired by aura symptoms like what porcupine describes experiencing.
Yep, forgot to say I once I had a really terrible migraine and not only did my tongue go numb but I started speaking really strangely. I knew what I wanted to say but if I tried to say it, it came out clearly but it was a different word! I got taken to casualty and they thought I was having a stroke but I painstakingly tried saying migraine about 20 times until someone understood and gave me some pills They explained later that the blood vessels in my head must have contracted so much they stopped the right nerves or whatever working so i just gabbled random stuff instead of what I was thinking of. Luckily thats never happened again, was really freaky.
Stroke. Persons who experience certain types of migraine are at a greater risk for stroke. Or maybe epilepsy. There’s a positive correlation between epilepsy and migraine, too.
All around, migraines are pretty shitty things to have to suffer. The pretty scotomas and hallucinations don’t make up for it at all. You could get those effects by ingesting mushrooms if ya really wanted.
As with a couple of posters above, I get verbal confusion during a migraine. Sometimes I’ll say the wrong word, and sometimes I just can’t think of the word I need.
I also lose my field of vision on the left side. It don’t really have a sensation of grayness over there, I just don’t see anything. It’s hard to describe.
Yes, he came back to the subject in that book, but earlier on their was a whole book on migraines exclusively. I found it in my university’s psychology library, so it might be limited print or something.
Noises that usually don’t bother me become very loud and irritating. Trying to express myself is difficult as I can’t seem to chase down my thoughts. When I do get the words out, I’m very difficult to understand. Sometimes I get extremely dizzy and my motor control goes way downhill. Those who have seen me in throes of a aura say that they’d swear I was drunk if they didn’t know what was going on.
I get a very blurry spot in my peripheral vision, like smudges on a lens, and it grows until it obliterates everything, then eventually shrinks again.
I used to get the pain after the auras every single time. Now it’s not all the time, which is good. But it is unpredictable, which is bad.
I also used to get an extreme euphoria after a migraine. Talking fast, energy, great mood.
There was a period of time where my speech was affected, but instead of verbal confusion, I slurred my words. I went through *months *of arguing with my mother because she thought I was drunk or on drugs, and it turned out that I was having silent migraines.
I get something similar. It feels like the words get stuck in my mouth. I’ll stutter, substitute words, speak through clenched teeth, until finally I can’t really speak without great effort.
I’ve always seen pin-pricks of light, which later take over so there is no input from whole sections of my field of vision. Lately I’ve been getting smells and tastes. The smells tend to be bad ones. Not rotten egg bad, but sickeningly sweet bad. Like cheap chocolate syrup. The tastes aren’t so bad- so far its been mangos, celery, white bread, etc. I never realized how strong the taste and smell hallucinations could be- they’re really amazing. Took a while for me to realize it was a migraine.
Migraines: Just one more reason I’m glad I live now and not in the dark ages.
Yeah, “pretty” isn’t really the word I wanted. Mebbe “interesting” would have been more descriptive, at least to non-migraine-sufferers like myself who’ve also enjoyed the visual hallucinations from ingesting acid and 'shrooms in our younger years. I dunno quite what word concisely expresses what I’m thinking. But “pretty” wasn’t even a reasonably close approximation.
Unfortunately, yes. Moreso in women though, than in men. And moreso for sufferers of classic migraine (with aura) than common migraine (without aura).
Huh, thanks for sharing. I hadn’t realized that. I had my first visual disturbance about 7-8 months ago and it scared me enough to go to the doctor to find out whether I was going blind or not. They told me it was a migraine aura without headache, and I’ve since done research to determine that many other things I’ve experienced are migraine aura as well, and that I’ve probably had them for longer than I realize. But my doctor didn’t seem to concerned, offered no treatment, and never mentioned anything about increased risk of stroke. I think I need to find a new doctor.
I can’t remember the names of things. It’s not that I can’t get the words out. The words are simply gone. I don’t get the Northern Lights either, but my nose and right hand turn into ice cubes.
Hey, does anyone else find that if you treat the headache before the nausea hits you’ve got an even chance of beating it back, but if the nausea beats you to the pill bottle, you’re screwed?
If I may be so bold, I would suggest you see a neurologist, rather than a GP, or family medicine type guy. My girlfriend, porcupine up there, has a neuro as her primary care doc. Your medical insurance plan (assuming you have one) may allow this.
Migraines are one weird damned malady. They manifest themselves in many, many different fashions with some really symptoms (and odd combinations of symptoms, too). What I think is most perplexing about them, is as the body chemistry changes over time, different symptoms some and go. For instance, porcupine used to experience common migraine only - no auras. In just the last 2 to 3 years, her migraine pattern is almost exclusively classic - more auras, and a very wide variety of auras - including severe vertigo.
Yeah, I think once my insurance at my new job kicks in I’ll try to schedule something with a neurologist. I haven’t had many painful headaches (just a couple) so I didn’t know if it was bad enough to seek further treatment but if it’s something that could get worse over time, or bring other risks definitely something I want to get checked out.
My GP pretty much gave me the impression it was no big deal. Gave me an eye test to make sure it wasn’t my vision, then diagnosed me and just said, “If it happens again or gets worse come on back.” but that was about the extent of the visit.
After I found out what it was I started talking with my mother and brother who have both had similiar symptoms - including severe bouts of vertigo - that were never diagnosed.
