Dilated exam during a visual disturbance episode

A while back I woke up with a large purplish arc in my left eye only. I'm pretty nearsighted, so I thought it way have been a retinal tear or something. I immediately went to the eye doctor and had my eyes dilated. She could see nothing in my eye that caused this. If this was an ocular migraine would she have seen the process during my exam? Or could this have been neurological? My mother had ocular migraines also.

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

No, you cannot see anything happening in the eye physically during an ocualar migraine.  The ocular migraine, typically really has nothing to do with blood flow to the eye but rather a spasm of blood flow in the visual areas of the brain.  Thus nothing to see from the ophthalmologist's perspective during the episode.

MJK MD

[Jason216]

I should also add it resolved itself in 24 hours

[Jason216]

Thank you so much doctor - that pretty much confirms that it was an ocular migraine. I wasn't sure.