• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Ocular Migraines

A

Anonymous

Guest
Just thought i'd report that i experience fantastic occular migraines - features include
-No pain at any time
-Warm feeling
-feeling of complete wellbeing
-emotional feelings - used to get upset and cry, now giggle and feel really satisfied and elated
- visual disturbances which start as a bit of a blind spot (like you've looked at a bright light) then increase in size, e.g. so i can't see my own face when i look in the mirror (or am i a vampire???!!!) - or can't see own hands or some fingers etc.
visual disturbances increase to jagged shimmering lines, bit like the predator - no one colour, just all colours mashed up.
It "feels" shimmering and warm.(synaesthesia!!!)
- sometimes if left to develop arms and face can go numb or tingly.
- the most disturbing feature is disturbed speech. i get that feeling that you get where you have repeated a word (like your name) over and over til it becomes unfamiliar - well that happens with most words. I can say my mothers name and half think it might be her name but not be entirely sure!!! I get words mixed up and am not sure if they are right or not e.g. "have you got the key cars?" instead of "car keys"..... it's well weird.

GP assures me they are tension related & not a worry. I get them when two things occur - (1) mental "task piling" - when you are conscious of having loads of things to do, to set time limits (2) physical exertion - such as clearing out a cupboard, preparing for a party, etc.

If i get one i try to play piano as it feels more pleasing.

i have about 2 a year and thoroughly enjoy them. I have never done LSD but imagine it couldn't be much better. I have to sometimes take migraleve tablets which knock it on the head within minutes. I am never sick or headachey.

bet other people get this.
 
Yes I get painless migraines occasionally, usually of I have been very busy and concentrating hard and then stop.
They are indeed very colourful, although I tend to panic and think I am going mad/blind or have a tumour or something when they happen and so do not enjoy them at all.
 
i've had a few of those over the past few years but i mainly have the intensely painful, paralysing, make you feel sick, give you bizarre dreams if you're asleep flavoured ones...
 
You're very lucky - any visual effects I get with migraines always occur when the migraine is particularly bad. I get spider-like things running about up walls, on floors, etc. in my peripheral vision. Combine this with hot&cold flushes, nausea, light sensitivity and extreme pain and none of it is pleasant at all :cross eye
 
I seem to get all the worst aspects of migrane, intense pain, nausea etc without any of the interesting aspects that you mention. I dont ever get viual disturbances although I do get some bizzare dreams sometimes and tend to be easily confusable (hey, if I use it, its a real word) whislt under the influance as it were.

I think only about half of migrane sufferers get the 'classic' migrane with the flashing lights and stuff while the other half get the 'common' migrane with just headache and sickness.

However if its feelings of wellbeing you want mixing the migrane drug Narmig with Codine works wonders. (dont try this at home kids)
 
I too get the cr*p migraine though they seem to get less frequent as I get older.

Once I had partial blindness- VERY scary.
 
I've only ever had two migraines and that was years ago at a time when I let stress get to me. I had all the symptoms described in the first post here, but I feel nauseous with hot and cold flushes too and am unable to do anything. Nasty.
Glad to say the last one was about 6 years ago.
 
I used to get migraines , the walls would go all wobbly but I didn't get any other visual effects , when I dosed myself up with migraleve I felt like borgqueen's description though .
 
I seem to only have about one migraine a year! But they aren't pleasant and there is absolutely nothing I can do to ease it. It has to run it's course. I start with a big clind spot on my right, then my right hand goes numb (all accompanied by pain of course) then about half and hour later I am sick. Then I have to sleep. It always follows this pattern. The wierd thing is my dad suffers in exactly the same way.
Ugh. Me not like migraines... :(
 
thank you

I have been getting these ocular migraines for three decades now and never knew what they were called.
Now I can google them up, and I am very grateful to you.
They don't hurt, but don't try to drive or operate machinery.
Or read, watch tv, or surf the net...
just watch the colours
steve b
 
I too get the painless migraines. I get a big jagged C shape in one eye, which effectively stops me seeing out of it. No feeling of well being though :( Plenty of disturbed speech, but then that's a feature of my version of M.E. so probably has nothing to do with ocular migraine.
Good to know someone else gets them.
 
How peculiar. I'd never heard of Ocular migraines before, but they certainly explain what I get now! From the age of about 9-13 I had roughly 20 migraine attacks a year. It was a living hell, but hey, that's life. I always noticed that after I'd vomited during an attack, and then slept for a couple of hours, I'd be basking in a warm glow for a couple of days afterwards, maybe it was an Ocular post-migraine!
The attacks subsided as I got a little older, but would still occur about 5-6 times a year up until I had meningitis when I was 21 a few years ago. Ever since the illness, I have -never- had a migraine, not even a headache. But, I've had what could be described as an Ocular migraine many a time since, but never realised what they were! Here's to realisation :p
 
Damn!

That is exactly what I was trying to explain in my recent post on my temporary blindness.
visual disturbances which start as a bit of a blind spot (like you've looked at a bright light) then increase in size, e.g. so i can't see my own face when i look in the mirror (or am i a vampire???!!!) - or can't see own hands or some fingers etc.
visual disturbances increase to jagged shimmering lines, bit like the predator - no one colour, just all colours mashed up.
It "feels" shimmering and warm.
No, I didn't go to the doc's about it...yet.

I had a guess it was 'stress related' due to the circumstances but also wondered if the 'energy drink/high sugar intake' contributed to it.

I AM NOT A FREAK!! [or am I?] ...Weehee!
 
i had something kind of like this, but it was more of a head rush. i got out of my buddy's car, and i was standing and felt a little light headed, then my vision started to get jagged spikes of black from the outside in. then my knees got all weak, and started shaking. only time it's happened in my 17 years though. pretty crazy shit i gotta say.
 
kadingle said:
and i was standing and felt a little light headed, then my vision started to get jagged spikes of black from the outside in. then my knees got all weak, and started shaking.
That's something else again. You either have low blood pressure (hypotension), which is generally a good thing, and you stood up too quick. Or you had low blood sugar. Possibly both.
Sometimes the "jagged spikes of black" meet in the middle, and you wake up on the floor. :(
 
I very often feel a bit dizzy if I move too quickly or stare up for too long because I have slightly low blood pressure.
I used to suffer from low blood sugar levels too, so I keep a sweet with me at all times in case I need it, but that hasn't happened in a while now.
 
I've had a couple of painless migraines- one time I developed tunnel vision while riding my motorbike. Not very helpful, really. The other time was while I was reading- I had to stop, as I couldn't see more than about half a word at a time.
 
I AM HAVING ONE NOW.
Just rushed back from a hactic lunch and the minute I walked through the door at work it started with that little C shaped zig-zag white/silver line on the right of my field of vision (feels like my right eye but if I close my right eye I can still see it on the right with my left eye) which has slowly grown to pretty much make the whole of the right of my field of vision a shimmering psychedelic mess.
Within about 15 minutes I will be pretty much unable to see. Usually all done and dusted within an hour.
I am not panicking this time, but it is still more annoying than calming or pleasant or anything like that.

Dumped, septic and tripping - oh my!
 
I remember a few years back, I went to a Bavarian night, one of those mad "dance on the table, race around the room to the sound of oompapa from the band" type evenings.
When I got home, I remember moving my arm in front of my face and seeing a pathway of it moving, like in slow motion films. I hadn't been drinking so it wasn't alcohol induced. I just wonder whether this was a mild migraine, or could it have been caused by some sort of inner ear problem due to the loud music?
I never felt ill, or any other side effects.
 
lizard23 said:
little C shaped zig-zag white/silver line on the right of my field of vision (feels like my right eye but if I close my right eye I can still see it on the right with my left eye)

i get that sometimes its like looking at a light but its annoying on times
but i never knew that it was a "occual migraine" though
thanx guys
 
I'd like to second Melf in saying thanks for bringing this topic up. I had an odd experience a couple of weeks ago - now I know it was an occular maigraine!

BTW, Caroline where you on SSRI anti-depressants? I was on them a few years back and my sense of space was very distorted - I felt like I was in a goldfish bowl.
 
remember moving my arm in front of my face and seeing a pathway of it moving

TRACERS!

Yes, ssri's will do this occasionally if I remember correctly : I notice it faintly occasionally straight, sober and for no apparent reason but it is basically *the* classic visual sign of 'tripping' i.e. being on hallucinogenic drugs, where everything does that bonfire-night sparkler persistence of vision trick of leaving a long trail behind it as it moves ; sometimes the trail consists of multiple repeated after-images so that a person swinging their arm becomes like a multi-limbed Hindu god.


I am not sure of the neurochemical mechanism involved but it could well be serotonin related. Certainly drugs are not the only method of inducing it.

I don't think I personally experience this as part of a migraine though. I have a feeling migraines are related to low serotonin, not high.

I did have an interesting hallucination associated with a migraine not long ago however : I had just walked up a steep hill when the migraine struck so I sat down on a bench by a junction to rest while the worst of the visual disturbance passed. I closed my eyes and could see a distinct 'hole' on the left of my field of vision the periphery of which was the unbearably bright silver fractal juddering of the migraine. Then I heard a car approaching towards the junction from the left and as it passed I 'saw' it quite clearly through the 'hole' as if it were an actual hole in my eyelid!
 
I'm on SSRIs and have been for years, and I have to say my vision is a little weird. I haven't noticed tracers, but I've found I can't see properly under bright artificial light. Walked round Ikea last week like Mr McGoo. Also have trouble with computer screens, and have the brightness down to zero so I can see.
Anyone else have this experience? Could be an M.E.thing of course, just to complicate matters.
 
I go blind. Not completely blind, just blind enough that I can't see out of the corner of my eyes or at anything directly in front of me, meaning I can only vaguely see the space between, and what I can see is a monumental blur.

It lasts for about fifteen minutes then slowly, VERY slowly, subsides.

To imagine what it's like, it's like when you're paraletic drunk (if anyone is able to remember what that's like) and trying to read a clock face. Sort of like that, except that anything I am able to focus on is a complete blur. All that I can see on the other hand is the floaters on my eyes, in crystal clarity if I try to focus.

I had this last night (not for the first time, I've had this since I was a bairn), and there was something quite comforting about it. The almost imebriated sense of helplessness was something that for a moment I wasn't afraid of, I rather enjoyed. cacooned in blindness if you like, and noise became incredibly fascinating.
 
I used to get the pounding headache, throwing up, scared of light kind but they seem to have stopped now.

I had some blindness once which was very scary until I'd had it checked out, which involved retinal scans etc. Thought I was going truly blind and was relieved to find it was 'just' migraine.

The migraines have more or less stpped now- haven't had a really bad one for years.

My drug of choice for migraine is Imigran. Turns your head to foam rubber but kills the pain and nausea in 15 minutes. Before Imigran I was out for the count in about an hour, helpless with pain. :(

When I was in Venice in February I had a lovely attack though. I saw a circle of bright lights, like a shimmering halo, with my left eye, and it was sooooooo beautiful!
Even so, I took a tablet to be on the safe side and went to bed.

Strangely enough, the place where I was staying was having power cuts and just as I was explaining to my Hungarian roommates that I was probably going to feel ill and may be temporarily blind, all the lights went off............
I was able to say, 'There! Told you!'
 
Beakboo, honey, get your eyes checked. You may just need a new prescription. Weird light effects are usually my first indication that mine has changed. Most recently, I started getting halos and rays around all light sources - even white letters on a black background, as in movie credits - and when I went in, I found that my eyesight had actually improved! I've been getting progressively more and more nearsighted all my life, and now middle-aged farsightedness is beginning to kick in, so I need a weaker prescription. Maybe by the time I'm 80 the effects will have canceled eachother out and I'll experience normal vision for the first time ever.

Anyway, I have low blood pressure and hypoglycemia, and I attribute most odd physical effects to them on general principles. (My experience in getting anything actually diagnosed is discouraging so I don't take symptoms in until they become debilitating.) Lately, I've been having low-level, persistent, headaches that distort my vision in ways that are hard to define, and I've wondered if they might be migraine. But they could also have do do with the fact that I work at a computer all day long, work on my laptop during lunch break, come home, and read e-mail, work on stories, and visit newsgroups at night...Certainly I've never had the devastating debilitating migraines I've seen in others, when they stay away from work for four days and then come straggling in and the boss sends them straight back home because it hurts to look at their pain.
 
There now seems to be an explanation for migraine ocular effects without necessarily suffering the debilitating pain, etc.

New research suggests migraine sufferers have hyper-excitable visual cortexes.
The brain of migraine sufferers is hyper-excitable

Individuals who suffer from migraine headaches appear to have a hyper-excitable visual cortex.

Individuals who suffer from migraine headaches appear to have a hyper-excitable visual cortex researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Lancaster suggest.

Migraines are characterised as debilitating and persistent headaches, often accompanied by an increased sensitivity to visual or other sensory stimuli. The exact causes of these headaches are not well understood, although scientists believe they may be related to temporary changes in the chemicals, nerves, or blood vessels in the brain.

In a new study, published in the journal Neuroimage: Clinical, researchers set out to test a theory that at least part of the answer lies in the visual cortex -- the part of our brain that is responsible for vision.

Dr Terence Chun Yuen Fong, lead author on the study, explained: "Most migraineurs also report experiencing abnormal visual sensations in their everyday life, for example, elementary hallucinations, visual discomforts and extra light sensitivity. We believe this hints at a link between migraine experiences and abnormalities in the visual cortex. Our results provide the first evidence for this theory, by discovering a specific brain response pattern among migraineurs." ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200210104114.htm
 
I've never suffered from migraines but last week I was working in our store and the 'psychedelic zig zag' thing happened to me that people report .. no pain, no nausea, it's never happened to me before and hasn't happened since .. tbh, I quite enjoyed the ocular distraction at the time, I think it was just a random stress/tiredness reaction .. 'trippy' though. I only knew what was going on because other members of this forum have posted computer generated pictures of what they look like so I'm glad I didn't skip reading that thread.

My brief experience (about 5 minutes) looked exactly like this even down to the angle except with washing detergent boxes in the background and a customer trying to talk to me. I wonder what makes the brain turn them into sharp zig zags? ..

amigraine aura.jpg
 
It might be the brain trying to make sense of too much sensory information, essentially mapping it onto your visual cortex in much the same way that an oscilloscope displays a waveform onto a screen.

I just made that up, but it's mad enough to be true.
 
Back
Top