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Eye Care (Expert Forum)
flashing lights in my vision
Answered by
John C Hagan III, MD, FACS - Ophthalmology
Discover Vision Centers
Kansas City - MO
Our Ask A Doctor Ophthalmology Forum is where you can post your question and receive a personal answer from physicians affiliated with the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
flashing lights in my vision
by RLS151, Jun 13, 2007 12:00AM
Just today, as I look up from a report to the computer monitor, I noticed a portion of the vision in my right eye was distracting, kind of like being in a very bright light and then walking into a room -- purplish with light refractory going on. I blinked and it didn't go away and about an hour later is still there. This light in my vision can be described almost like an open circle of refracted light in my vision path, like a floating aroura borialis or light shining through a quartz crystal. It is not painful but it is annoying. Is this something to worry about?
Doctor's Answer
by John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, Jun 13, 2007 12:00AM
, Jun 13, 2007 12:00AM
Hello, yes this 'scintillating scotoma' (shimmering blind spot) will require investigation. Physicians speak of 'Differential Diagnosis' that means a list of diseases that can cause a certain symptom. The problem you describe can be caused by a number of things the most common relatively not serious but a few may be due to things that are serious.
If you are a relatively healthy young or middle aged person, especially if female and on birth control pills, hormones or are pregnant or have a family history of migraine the problem most often is 'eye migraines' or 'ophthalmic migraine'. Eye migraines have mainly visual symptoms and often are not accompanied by headaches or there may be only a minor headaches. Eye migraines are more common in people that have had 'classic' migraine when they were younger and in 'migraine families'. They can be infrequent in which no treatment is necessary or occur so often that medications are used to prevent them.
Eye migraine is diagnosed after excluding other more serious problems: There are a few problems in the eye related to small clots (emboli) or blockage of the arteries and veins that might cause this. You need to make an appointment for a comprehensive medical eye examination by an ophthalmologist (Eye MD).
In people in their 50's thru 80's, problems with the heart, blood vessels, brain (tumors, abnormal blood vessels, atypical seizure disorders) need to be ruled out. These problems are more common in smokers, diabetics, hypertensives (high blood pressure), high cholesterol, family history of neurological and cardio-vascular disease.
To summarize statistically it was likely an eye migraine but you need a good physical examination by your personal physician and to see an ophthalmologist in the near future.
JCH MD
If you are a relatively healthy young or middle aged person, especially if female and on birth control pills, hormones or are pregnant or have a family history of migraine the problem most often is 'eye migraines' or 'ophthalmic migraine'. Eye migraines have mainly visual symptoms and often are not accompanied by headaches or there may be only a minor headaches. Eye migraines are more common in people that have had 'classic' migraine when they were younger and in 'migraine families'. They can be infrequent in which no treatment is necessary or occur so often that medications are used to prevent them.
Eye migraine is diagnosed after excluding other more serious problems: There are a few problems in the eye related to small clots (emboli) or blockage of the arteries and veins that might cause this. You need to make an appointment for a comprehensive medical eye examination by an ophthalmologist (Eye MD).
In people in their 50's thru 80's, problems with the heart, blood vessels, brain (tumors, abnormal blood vessels, atypical seizure disorders) need to be ruled out. These problems are more common in smokers, diabetics, hypertensives (high blood pressure), high cholesterol, family history of neurological and cardio-vascular disease.
To summarize statistically it was likely an eye migraine but you need a good physical examination by your personal physician and to see an ophthalmologist in the near future.
JCH MD
My WHOLE family has migraines with aura--mother, aunt, at least 3 of my 4 siblings, both my kids. Still, I had never heard the aura described and panicked when I had my first one at age 42--not knowing I was a migraineur. Called the doctor's office in a panic thinking I was having a stroke! The doctor told me what it was but referred me to an ophthalmologist anyway, who of course found nothing.
I did have frequent mild headaches in high school or so, but never told anyone, as I thought everyone had headaches.
Motion sickness tends to be a problem in migraine families too. I remember my mother feeding us all Dramamine tablets in spoonfuls of jam before any car trip. In college I worked two half-days in a cannery--went home sick at noon the first day, came back two days later loaded up with Dramamine, but was throwing up in the cannery gutter by 10:00 a.m. Couldn't stand the motion of belts in front of me! Developed low-level constant dizziness in the late 80s, worsened in 1999, and only in the past year have I felt halfway normal again, although the neurologist-dizziness specialist did not think this was migraine.
Migraines are WEIRD, weird things. During my son's migraine period (after puberty), he told me about numb/tingliness moving from his fingers up his arm, alternate weeks from when he had a headache. I thought he was imagining things until I read about the "marching" numbness being a migraine