# What migraine aura looks like. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 21, 2002, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328 "2002-03-21T12:01:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2002, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/21 "2002-03-21T19:51:46Z")
Damn, I was gonna suggest the Sacks book. Anyway… I’ve had migraines my whole life, but only had an aura once. I used to have very reliable warning signals, though I’d be hard pressed to verbalize what they were - I just felt weird. Since I’ve been on preventative medications, though, I never have warning signals. If you have more than a couple of the migraine symptoms, you probably have migraines. Not every gets an aura, not everyone gets sensitivity to light, etc. So if you suspect you have migraines, talk to your doctor - as **Duke** mentioned, the triptans are fairly good abortives - they work for me about 70% of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Kricket](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f14d63/32.png) [@Kricket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kricket)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2002, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/22 "2002-03-22T04:27:06Z")
Lord, I’ve had one for three weeks! Sinus infection caused double ear infection that spun me into the naging start of a migraine that is ebbing right now. It’s been comming in waves for the last three weeks. In one thread I officially deemed Migraine Suffer #2. I get them so bad I lose balance, I can’t see, and I throw up non-stop until they take me to the ER. I have now started getting muscle spasms in my eye which has been scary. The rest of the stuff isn’t scary anymore. Funny how you get used to things isn’t it? I’m on 50mg Amitriptyline every night as a preventitive. They tried Midrin and it did nothing. Just this week they tried Imatrix tablets and nothing. My migraines are starting to break through the nightly meds but I dont’ want to increase since they knock me out and leave me hazy. For some reason when I get them at work (lots of noise and florecent lighting) the nurse had me put moist heat on the back and side of my neck. Didn’t get rid of it but kept it at a dull roar and I didn’t vomit. My husband doesn’t understand them and says I’m over reacting, but I have seen him lay in bed all day with a headache. I did scare him once when I couldn’t stop throwing up for three hours. He actually called and had my friend take me to the ER since he had to stay with the kids. I’m going to check on that Sacks link. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/23 "2002-03-22T05:00:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\*Does anyone else get over-emotional after an attack? I usually want to cry, then am very touchy and snappy the next day. \*\* The first time I had the aura (at about age 65) I thought I might be going nuts. Then I remembered seeing some hand drawn images of epilepsy sufferer’s auras and many of them looked just like mine. So I thought I might have the onset of epilepsy. I’m now 79 and get them in spurts. I’ll go for a couple of years without and then have several in a period of a few months. No headaches - yet, and no epilepsy - yet. Mine start with a little flashing (like a strobe) spot that I can see but can’t look directly at. This gradually expands into a curved, flashing, more-or-less horizontal, jagged streak that gradually fades away. They never last more than about 5 minutes or so. ---
**Author:** ![Tsubaki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@Tsubaki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tsubaki)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2002, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/24 "2002-03-22T06:22:37Z")
Freaky, isn’t it? I have the same kind of aura as **jjimm** has illustrated, except without the colours. And then I get blank spots. Usually if I take Excedrin when I first notice the aura, I can get away with just a very mild headache. But now I’m in my seventh week of pregnancy, I’m really wary about taking strong medication. So of course I got a migraine the other day (!). Its the first time ever that I’ve had to deal with it without the use of medication. The aura came at noon, the pain started at 1pm, and I still had pain at 10pm that night. I have light AND noise sensitivity, so the only thing I can do is sleep in a dark, quiet room. It was truly horrible, and I never want to go through that again. So I feel extreme sympathy for anyone who has to deal with this kind of experience for days at a time. Can you imagine what life was like for migraine sufferers 200 years ago? I love my Excedrin! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/25 "2002-03-23T19:38:27Z")
If you want to see what mine look like, close your eyes and then rub them with your fists. When you start to see weird colored patterns, that’s what mine look like. Fortunately, I rarely get them, only if I get dizzy, or stand up too fast with a migraine. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2002, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/26 "2002-03-23T20:16:19Z")
I have had two migraines–one last year, and the other one yesterday, beleive it or not. My auras are more swirly and pastel-colored–like what you see when you rub your eyes, like **Guin** says, but brighter–and semicircular in shape rather than zig-zaggy. I only get one and it starts at the lower left of my field of vision and progresses toward the center while getting larger. For a while, I can “fake” it out by moving my eyes around quickly and peaking around it, but eventually it’s square in the center of my field of view and too big for me to read anymore. (Both my migraines occurred while I was working at the computer.) The really freaky thing is that after the aura goes away (it lasts less than half an hour), my left hand gets numb and tingly for 15 minutes or so. I had guessed that the aura might be migraine-related because my husband had something similar, and an optometrist told him it was an ocular migraine–but he hadn’t experienced any numbness! I was relieved to read that this was a common migraine sympotom. After the numbness goes away, I get a mild headache which lasts a half hour or so, and I’m very fatigued. The first migraine I had went just like that. Now, yesterday, I had this sequence in the afternoon, but last night, after feeling fine all evening, I suddenly got a real skull-splitter of a headache around midnight. It felt like someone inside my head had attatched a cable between my cheekbones and was tightening, tightening, tightening. . . It felt like the bones in my face were going to crack. Occassionally, the cable-tightener would get bored and start shoving an icepick through the orbit of my right eye. When this got dull, he’d take up the slack in the cable again. I had mild nausea, too. Don’t know if it was a seperate symptom, per se, or just a reaction to the pain. After an hour of this, I was starting to seriously consider trepannation–the Tylenol I was popping wasn’t even taking the edge off. If I ever get another one like _that_, I’m going to present myself to my GP and demand meds! But if I lived a few centuries ago, **Tsubaki** , I’d probably find someone with a nice hefty drill to let the demon out. I realize that my symptoms are relatively mild. My sympathies go out to those who have more frequent and severe attacks! Hell, my sympathies to any poor schmucks who have “mild” migraines like mine, too! ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/27 "2002-03-24T18:02:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Green Bean \* > \*\*Wow, that’s cool! I get the cloudiness, but not the zig-zags. > > Me too! I didn’t know that those things happened to anyone else. I have only done the “wrong words” thing a few times, but the traveling numbness happens frequently. It starts in my right pinky, travels across my hand, up my arm, and into my face. I’m lucky because if I can take 4 advils before it gets to my face, the headache-part of the migraine is usually minimized. \*\* That’s how I got it the only two times I did. My right hand got “tinkley”, then eventually my face did, then **KA-POW!** Worst, yuckiest feeling in my head ever! Went to the hospital and they stuck me in a dark room with an IV pain killer – it worked and strangely it felts as if someone slid a thin veil off my brain. No kidding. Put a satin sheet over your head and then pull it off – that’s exactly how the “end-of-migraine” felt with the meds they gave me (only it felt like that satin sheet was _inside my skull_ not over top of it.) I’ve had the aura without the migraine. It looks pretty much like the GIFs, but I get flashing spots more than the coloured zig-zags. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/28 "2002-03-24T18:06:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tansu \* > \*\*I’ve only ever had a few migraines. Only oe was with visual aura (just like in your gifs, but brighter to start with and a monochrome herringbone) and I was scared shitless until I found out what it was. The other auras I get are mouth and speech ones. \*\* My friends grandfather would get odd migraines: No pain, he would just get the aura and then go blind. His sight would return when the migraine went away. He was very stoic about it and would just sit in a cair and daydream or listen to music. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/29 "2002-03-24T23:21:43Z")
Another migraine sufferer checking in. My migraines are exactly like what **Tsubaki** described. I first started getting my migraines sophmore year of high school, and it wasn’t until a few years afterwards did I finally figure out that what I had was migraines. The actual headache isn’t as bad as some cases I have heard about (I remember a Dateline special one time where they showed people with such severe migraines that they’d bang their heads on coffee tables; scares the hell out of me now). Only once was I sensitive to light and sound. But I have a feeling that my migraines are getting worse, because the last time I had one I became nauseated. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/30 "2002-03-25T02:07:29Z")
IIRC, **jjimm** ’s pictures (especially the third) show what was called a ‘fortification aura’ back when I was having severe migraines, 30 or 35 years ago. Mine started somewhere around puberty (fairly common, I hear) and stopped being very bad in my late teens, though I still get the auras once in a while. Like **David Simmons** , mine come in clusters. I’m _really_ glad I don’t get the severe headaches any more; all I could do at the time was lie in a dark room (with a cold cloth and a bucket) and hope I would die soon. ☹ My sympathies go out to anybody who gets migraines. At least the new treatments usually work pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![AbbySthrnAccent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@AbbySthrnAccent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AbbySthrnAccent)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328/31 "2002-03-25T13:47:34Z")
Mine are quite like **Tsubaki** ’s, right down to the lack of color, blank spots and effectiveness of Excedrin, if I take it as soon as I get the first indication of an aura. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\*Does anyone else get over-emotional after an attack? I usually want to cry, then am very touchy and snappy the next day. \*\* Me ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-migraine-aura-looks-like/99328.md?page=1)