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Migraine 'Auras' & Other Visual Disturbances

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Anonymous

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Hello.......First time I've attempted to open a new thread etc.... so forgive me if it's all awry.

I've suffered from migraines for about 23 years now. (I'm 38)
And I've always had the classic zig-zag multi-coloured flashing lights and temporary blindness. But, recently, I've started getting 'Complex Migraines'. These consist of the disturbance in one eye only, and not blocking the vision completely, but having an opaque "stain" or "blotch" appear in part of the visual field. Now, the classic auras usually last for about half an hour, then fade. But these ones can last up to 2 weeks!
I've always had the odd flash, or dark dot appear then fade within seconds or minutes and I've always attributed them to tiredness or just some quirk in the retina or cerebral area, and due to them not causing any damage, being unconcerned.
But, it turns out that, even the slightest little dot, has been a migraine. Which would appear that I have suffered forms of migraine, about 5 or 6 times a day!
Today, I went to the doctor and got a thorough diagnosis, ("It's not retinal tearing is it Doc'?") etc..
and I was prescribed some pills that eradicate the visual annoyance. I was utterly relieved and pleased I can tell you!

Has anyone else experienced stains or blotches/dots in the eye/s and seen about it? If so, did they get it seen to, and was it the same thing?
I don't want to go into Jacob's Ladder! lol!

Si thi ;)
 
Sounds very like the problems I get.. what drug are you on?
 
Metroprolol tartrate (50mg initially, upped to one 250mg after 2 weeks) twice a day.
How long have you had them?
 
When I get migraines, I don't get anything like you've described. Instead I have spiders running all over the place in my peripheral vision, which can linger even on the day after the migraine.
 
That sounds familiar.
Do you think there's a link between migraine sufferers and us lot? I mean, the only other sufferers are either women, or blokes with alternative interests. (Alternative in it's proper context, not gender-wise!)

Maybe the inconveniences and the oddness of the symptoms makes us sympathetic to oddness!? :S

Si thi ;)
 
*sits stunned*

Thank you spillage. That explains the dots and blurs I see.

*touches wood*

I've not had a 'classic' migraine in some time.

There's the migraine thing, the 'big/small' thing (there's a thread on it...somewhere) , depression, and a whole host of other indicators to people's predilection for Forteana and other weirdness.
 
spillage said:
Metroprolol tartrate (50mg initially, upped to one 250mg after 2 weeks) twice a day.
How long have you had them?
Click to expand...

since I was 7. Recently been diagnosed as suffering a form of brain damage which is the probable root cause. It explains my SOH certainly :D
 
I haven't had a migraine for years (desperatly runs off to find wood)....When I do, I get a kind of tunnel effect. It's almost exactly like the titles for Doctor Who. Anyone know what I mean?

My recent eye problem sounds rather like what you're describing. Except I was told there's nothing wrong with my eye, and nothing that would cause what I'm describing, so nothing there. That warped kind of NHS logic, you know? :mad: That's a splodge in the peripheral vision of one eye, rather like a pixellated effect. In certain lighting conditions, it's like a black lace veil over the peripheral vision of the eye. It's incredibly irritating at times, because I keep trying to look at it. As you can probably imagine, if you keep seeing this kind of rotating blob just to the side of what you're looking at, your instinct is to look at it. But then it moves.

As that's been dragging on for some time, I've ruled out migraines. Although I am wondering if it's stress related. Then again, it doesn't seem to get better or worse depending on my (conscious) stress levels. Bright sunlight is rather bad though.

A couple of people I've spoken to have similar things - occular floaters or something. Mind you, they all had loads of tests, of the sensors attached to your head kind, and brain scans, before they were given the all clear. All I got was the cheap option - atropine in the eye, flash with the light, couple of basic eye tests - Robert's your dad's brother and Fanny's his sister - there's nothing wrong with you.

Which doesn't explain why I still get it, of course. Obviously I'm just an hysterical female. :rolleyes:

Anyway, don't let me get myself started on that all over again!
 
spillage said:
Do you think there's a link between migraine sufferers and us lot? I mean, the only other sufferers are either women, or blokes with alternative interests. (Alternative in it's proper context, not gender-wise!)
Click to expand...

Er...dunno what you mean, especially by 'us lot'. I get migraines, and don't have any other problems. My migraines are usually set off by very bright sunlight, or very bright light reflections (think bright sunshine shining off of a wet pavement). Some food also kicks it all off (i.e. artichokes). At best I just get the feeling that someone is hammering a spike into one of my eyeball sockets. At worst, I get that plus nausea, vomiting and the aforementioned peripheral 'spiders'. The next day I feel like I have a hangover and have have also been kicked in the head.
Despite the great amount of sun last summer, I didn't get one migraine - this may be down to some new polarising sunglasses, but I dunno.
 
My recent eye problem sounds rather like what you're describing. Except I was told there's nothing wrong with my eye, and nothing that would cause what I'm describing, so nothing there. That warped kind of NHS logic, you know? That's a splodge in the peripheral vision of one eye, rather like a pixellated effect. In certain lighting conditions, it's like a black lace veil over the peripheral vision of the eye. It's incredibly irritating at times, because I keep trying to look at it. As you can probably imagine, if you keep seeing this kind of rotating blob just to the side of what you're looking at, your instinct is to look at it. But then it moves.
Click to expand...
This, and the rest, absolutely BRILLIANT responses, thankyou!
Yes, I really do know what you mean!!!! It's scary and annoying!And noone knows what the fuck you mean when you try to explain! Including the "Specialists"! Don't look on the net 'cos it'll have you panicking about retinal tears and other permanent damages!
I've only just started to have the annoying "Cluster type " marks in the peripheral. It's like a dark snowflake or something at the moment.
You have relieved me SOOO SO very very much, as I was getting depressed and severely thinking it was just me that had this oddness!
We should get together and swap shape detail and visual field locations and maybe, map out the results as a sort of crop circle effect, or artwork.
Keep the details coming. I'm intrigued as it's been scaring me for years.
See ya, Spill (Trev)xx

PS....."Us lot" meaning, us on here . ;)
 
The migraines you get sound like the ones I first used to get in my teens. They would start with a vague swirling shape in my peripheral vision, which would 'expand' and eventually take up more of my field of vision as a kind of blotch. I don't get those any more - just the ones I've described above.
 
I just get yer classic ocular migraine, which is a large C made up of glowing and flashing rods of light. Starts small, gradually fills the left field of vision, and disappears by moving off to the left after as little as half an hour.
 
beakboo said:
I just get yer classic ocular migraine, which is a large C made up of glowing and flashing rods of light. Starts small, gradually fills the left field of vision, and disappears by moving off to the left after as little as half an hour.
Click to expand...
I've had that before. Only after consuming too much coffee though. So now I only drink about one cup a day (one cup more than I should drink, I know).
 
Thought I'd add my thoughts here.

I too suffer from the misery that is a migraine and as others have mentioned here have had a very hard time explaining it to specialists. The majority of people find it very hard to understand how debilitating it actually is. The amount of times I've been accused of having hangovers is unbeleivable!

I only started getting migraines when I was around 17 (hence the hangover accusations) and I have no idea what triggered it. I get the spider effect in my periferal vision and the disturbance of 'floaters' in my main vision. Never had the colour effects some describe here.

I was eventually diagnosed with 'Thunderclap Migraines'. A grand title! After much jiggering about with different medications I've finally found one that seems to appease the pain.

The only other point of interest with these migraines is that as I find light to be paticularly annoying, therefore can be found in a dark room and I have on occasion had what I would term out of body experiences at this time. Anyone else had this?
 
It's thought that Lewis Carol suffered from migraines, and his experiences lead him partially to write about changing size etc...

Some sufferers experience a feeling that their bodies are shrinking, growing or floating.

I too get the vitrious floaters. I get the point of light, which fades to dark then gone, every time I get a cold or flu'. I get them most of the time, but always with a cold. Sometimes, it's just like an after-image of a lamp or a bright reflection; I can see it more when I blink.

The classic C shaped multi-coloured zigzag aura is my usual symptom, folowed by the sharp pain behind the eye, then, inevitably, the sickness and fear.

Hopefully these new pills will work. I hate taking pills, but it's a last resort.

It was once regarded as an intellectual illness you know! :p

Si thi.
Spill'. x
 
Oh wow, I’m glad you started this thread, spillage! Now I know I’m not alone!

I seldom get headaches so when I started having these visual disturbances so well described on this thread, I went to see the eye specialist. Nothing wrong he could find, but to completely rule out any thing serious, I had to get an MRI done. Well ended up having to do THREE, getting myself more and more nervous, especially when they had to inject a dye so that the scans could show up clearer. Well, after all that expense, nothing serious seen. Still, to put my mind at ease, the specialist is referring me to a neurologist. Luckily I join this board, read this thread, can now surf with peace of mind, and disregard the occasional light show I get. Besides saving lots of money. Thank you, spillage!
:) :) :)
 
Thank you for this thread!
I get exactly the same 'c' shape filled with fuzzy zigzags from time to time..no headache though, fortunately!
 
I've only ever had one, fortunately, but I remember having a part of my vision blocked. I could see either side but not directly in front of me in a particular spot. It was most disconcerting considering I was living away from home on my own and didn't know what was going on at the time. I was quite relieved when a friend told me the next day that it was a migraine. :eek:
 
I remeber getting up one morning and thinking I had some horrible eye infection that stopped me seeing anything but a blur at one side.

After about an hour I worked out that one of the lenses had fallen out of my glasses!
 
To Mynah & Gellatly68,
It's brilliant that I've helped relieve you of what I was initially suffering! Ace stuff!
I went through deep depression and bad nerves through the visual stuff connected with migraine and noone offered a solution or any recognition of the symptoms, (apart from an old library book which was quite scary!!)
When I read the reply posts to my thread, I was utterly joyous that it's more common and 'normal' than I had imagined.
Has anyone sat at home, fearing going places or making plans because they thought they'd be hit by the scary blindness and panick thinking they were going mad? I know I did.

"It's just a migraine." I'd be told....... To me, it was like I had been poisoned by some strange hallucinagenic and was destined to be tortured everytime anything good was happening. *Agoraphobic reactions*
Still.....worse things happened to me in life, and I learned to cope with them.

It's really good to hear other people talking about it.
I wonder why you never hear about it though? It's not like it's embarrassing.

To everyone, I hope one day soon, the migraines cease!

Take care and "Si thi,"
Spill. :D
 
At the risk of being overly cheery... I've been waiting for the migraines to stop since I was first diagnosed with them 32 years ago :(
 
I find it odd that migraines don't seem to have been diagnosed for some people here. When I got my first migraine at around the age of 16, I went to my doctor and he told me straight away that it was a migraine. Which was a relief to me at the time, as I used to do alot of headbanging a few years earlier in my heavy metal phase... :D
 
I've had occasional migraines since I was about 18.

They were most common when I spent time under flourescent lights for part of the day (college days).
It'd start as a 'blotch' of multi-coloured flashing light, then get bigger to obscure most of my vision. This would be accompanied by feeling sick and 'out-of-it'.
After an hour or so it'd disappear.

I rarely get them now (maybe because I work outside all day in natural light?). But I still get a little 'point of light/blindness' fairly frequently. It goes away after a short while.
 
I've been through phases of getting migraines, about ten years ago and again recently. I've never had any occular disturbances with them apart from the walls pulsing! I just get tearing agony and/or violent vomiting, codeine or Migraleve (the anti sickness pink ones) work well.
Apparently migraine means 'half a head' and you can tell the difference between migraines and normal headaches as you only get the pain on one side- I always get the pain on the right side.
 
You bastards! I read this thread yesterday morning, thinking back to the days, 10 years ago, where I got regular migraines with auras which were mostly ignored or discounted by family and doctors and teachers.

Then I go and get a bloody migraine for the first time in 10 years yesterday afternoon! I had the car at work and I couldn't see a thing! Had to get a friend to drive Hubby to my work (luckily he had a day off) so he could collect the car and take me home.

I blame each and every one of you . . . :hmph:

ps. Feverfew, taken every day, can help to build up your defences against migraine, but it can take a few months to take effect.
 
Sorry KittyRice!

My first attack was in 2002 at about 5 p.m. in the office. I was feeling unusually tired & my eyes were aching. Suddenly flashes of zig zagging lights obscured my vision. My office mate was talking to me and I couldnt see half his face! In fact I couldnt see properly for about 20 mins. Panic set in. My assistant helped me to call the eye specialist but the clinic was closed already! My vision slowly cleared and first thing next morning I was at the doctor's. He did say it looks like migraine. But I didnt experience any head pain or nausea.

Well, it seems my doctor did not know enough to tell me about such a thing as ocular migraine :mad: I found out on this board!


The money I spent on MRI scans could have bought me 3 pairs of designer shades :(
 
I use to always get migraines when I was in figure drawing class.
I'd get a big shimmering blotch right in the middle of my vision where I needed to look. It looked a great deal like the creature from Predator with it's cloaking device on.
 
Well, I had my first one on Friday, whilst driving at speed down a country lane miles from a chemist or, indeed, a place to park. Went completely blind in my left eye.

My driving was, shall we say, focussed.
 
spillage said:
Has anyone sat at home, fearing going places or making plans because they thought they'd be hit by the scary blindness and panick thinking they were going mad? I know I did.
Click to expand...

Frequently. Added to which, thorough depression at the thought that I may not be able to ride my bike again :(

When I told the doctor I wasn't sure if I was safe to drive a car, and really unsure about riding the bike, do you know what the git said? "Don't." Bastard. :mad:

If mine is migrainous, then it's been going for over 2 months now. No head pain, just the visual disturbance in the one eye. And no monitoring, or scans or anything. :mad:
 
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