Hi Bio,
I haven't had this problem, but I can see why it would wierd you out. Hope this is a one time thing, but yes, you should tell your dr.
Be well, bio, and take good care of yourself!!!
doni
Although I had mild daily headaches when I was in high school (or thereabouts), and although my sister and mother were major migraineurs, I always smugly thought I wasn't a migraineur.
At age 42, in late September 1999 (after a summer of electric zaps in my face, sudden hearing loss and dizziness, "whumps" in my head and ear, and sudden-onset hyperacusis in my good ear), one day I'm sitting at the computer, minding my own business, when I get a small "blank" spot just right of and below my center of vision in my right eye. It gets about dime-sized and then slowly turns into a backward block-letter "C" filled with facets of flashing light, like a semicircle full of chandelier pendants in the breeze.
I panic. I think of the ads on billboards around town: "Sudden trouble seeing? could be a stroke, get medical help immediately!" I call my doctor's office, nearly hyperventilating. The nurse listens to my description as the backwards "C" continues to expand upward and outward in my field of vision. She says she doesn't think I'm having a stroke but she will get me in today anyway.
Within 30-35 minutes, the whole thing is over. I am very relieved. No headache or other symptoms. The doctor says "ocular migraine." I'm astounded. My mother, sister, and daughter had described "flashing lights" with their migraines, but I never thought to ask them what they really looked like. Turns out my sister's aura is EXACTLY the same as mine, though my daughter's and son's were somewhat different.
The doctor says she's going to send me anyway to an ophthalmologist, to get a "full view of the retina." She goes out to get the referral information, but she doesn't close the door all the way. Down the hall I hear her telling someone "...thought she was having a thrombosis," and they both laugh heartily. Well, fooey on them. What an idiot patient to do what the medical community advises--get help urgently if you have sudden trouble seeing. I'd never heard of an ocular migraine!! How was I supposed to know what it was!?
Anyway, my point is... once a migraineur, always a migraineur (and if your mom, sis, and both kids are migraineurs, sorry, but you are too, no matter how smugly you think you've escaped it!!), and migraine symptoms can change from one period of your life to the next.
My theory is that when perimenopause with its hormonal changes hit hard, as it did that summer (back-to-back three-week periods smack dab between the hearing loss and the ocular migraine), it started up not only migraine activity (I had two more ocular migraines in the following months, and not another one since) but some kind of disease-y thing that caused an onslaught of relatively minor but VERRRY weird neuro things all that summer and fall.
Weird new things continued to happen for a year or two, but I never really thought I had a "disease," i.e., something really wrong, until a neuro said "MS" a year later. Of course we now know that I got all those symptoms by reading about them on the Internet (because the same neuro said so, a year later). Yep.
My sister-in-law gets migraines and says that she can't understand her kids talking to her, nor talk herself, when she gets them. They are VERY weird things. In recent years I had mornings where I'd wake up very nauseated, with a little diarrhea, sure I had "stomach flu," but in a few hours I'd be fine. I believe those were also migraine attacks, as they always seemed occurred in the early morning when I woke up. I never get serious headaches.
The second ocular migraine I had was exactly like the first, except in the other eye. (Although if you close your eyes, or cover one, it's still there.) The third, in the right eye again, was exactly the same EXCEPT it was in color--the "facets" in the block-letter C were flashing colors such as brown, blue, yellow, and green. Very pretty. By that time I was able to just sit there and enjoy it.
Nancy T.
Thanks, y'all. It really really freaked me out, far more than anything else I've ever experienced. And then I had an almost post-ictal kind of exhaustion afterwards, just soooooo tired. Never got a headache, just that aura--and while I had it, the world was just a bunch of noise, I was shaky, weird feeling...my kids were talking to me and I couldn't see their faces and I had a horrible time trying to formulate the sentences to talk back. And then...it just faded out. Truly bizarre.
Bio
sorry to hear your going through these Migraines...I haven't had any migraines (touch wood)... and hope you feel better soon...you don't need this as well as that horrible tooth..
take it easy
wobbly
undx
Sorry to hear of your migraine. Actually, your description is VERY similar of how my new onset complex migraines started. My neuro told me then he suspected MS because of the late in life (age 47) begining of migraines. I usually just have the aura and the associated numbness/tingling and/or dizziness. My head doesn't ever really hurt that bad. Had a work-up at an academic center that had a dizziness clinic. She , too, thought I had migraine auras without the head "ache" . I think the term used was acephalic migraines. However, bright lights and noise do worsen the symptoms just as if I had an actual headache. The weirdness of my migraine and equivocal MRIs still have my neuro leaving MS in the differential diagnosis. The MS Specialist said many MS patients have migraines as well.
Here's to no more auras. They are quite unnerving.
Good luck,
Rendean
I do agree with Lulu on letting your Dr. know. I had an opthsmologist appt 2 days ago and mentioned these. He did not seem overly concerned but suggested a MRI. Since I just had one at the beginning of Dec, I declined.
I would ask for an appt.
Bio,
Fortunately for me I have absolutely no optical problems with my MS so I can't be of any help here other than my immediate reaction - be sure to let your doctor know and perhaps you should see the opthamologist and get a baseline exam of your vision documented.
I hope the aura/migraine whatever it was, stays gone,
Lulu
Yes! These "occular migranes" that I get actually started when I was diagnosed with MS, although my neuro said that they are not related to MS. Mine start as a half moon shaped light prism on the bottom of my field of vision. It continues to move across my eye and then disappears. Total time is about 20 minutes and I am unable to see during this time.
It really seems to actually come at the beginning or the end of a MS attack. My neuro again does not agree that there is any connection. I NEVER had anything similar to this prior to MS but what do I know??
Very disturbing but harmless. I also do not have any pain when I have these.