Retinal 'Migraine'

[usagisenpai]

This is literally me. Diffused vision loss, only in my right eye, and the typical migraine symptoms. 20 years of having this and the only one that pointed me to the right diagnosis is a Youtube video oh my god. THANK YOU!

[bridgettethacker]

I have this all the time. Scares the shit out of me.

[SnarlyCharly]

I never, ever get headaches. But, I do have these ocular migraines occasionally, maybe once every couple of months. Nothing hurts at all when they happen, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of trigger behind them whatsoever, they always seem to just pop up out of the blue. It starts when I notice the tiniest bit of a blind spot right near the center of my vision. Within a couple minutes the blind spot grows, usually moving toward the left side of my vision. The spot eventually stretches away from the center of my vision and into more of a crescent shape and starts to get that flashing squiggly zigzag look, similar to what you see in people's renderings of what an ocular migraine looks like. The shape continues to grow larger for a few minutes, then will just start fading away and my vision returns to completely normal. All this usually happens in less than 20 minutes total and doesn't happen again for a long time. Doesn't worry me in the slightest.

[marinegunner]

Thanks Doc. That’s the best, most useful discussion I’ve found on this topic.

I have exactly the symptoms you describe with the building, scintillating march.

It starts as a tiny dot toward the center of my vision and grows into an arc of scintillating, intersecting, inverted “V” shapes that proceed (march) across my vision To eventually disappear beyond my peripheral view. They can march in either direction; right or left but never up or down.

I had the first one about thirty years ago and it was scary; happened while casually walking with my wife. After that they happened every few months with frequency increasing over time.

Now I seem to have them a couple of times times a week.

Today I had two, back-to-back. They started in the usual way but the initial spot was larger. Then it grew into the usual arc but longer, becoming semi-circular. As soon as that one exited my vision to my left a second one began and was virtually identical to the first one except that it grew in to an arc to the right and marched out of my vision to the right.

This is the first time I’ve ever had this happen with TWO arcs, in opposite directions.

I never have headaches in conjunction with these events. My Opthamologist called them “Ocular Migraines.” I literally drew him a picture as I described it. He told me that they are common and not dangerous.

[kt]

I have all those symptoms but not all the time. At the moment I have an aura that's not fully dissapeared after 9 days. It's just a small fragment to the right of center of my vision. I can see the usual red and green colours, it's very annoying. Suffered migrains with aura since I was 6 yrs old, I'm now 75yrs. My migraines have evolved over the years. I turn to a brilliant migraine sufferers forum and learned so much, and gained so much help. I just want this stuck fragment of aura to clear. Had several auras in this past week preceeding the headache.

[fuscia]

All these years, it’s been a retinol migraine. Only my right eye and side of my head is affected. Though I have peripheral vision loss on both sides. I have aura with or without pain following the aura.

[MrsMacWifey]

Wow, so informative. It's weird to hear a doctor who knows so much about migraine. Or maybe I'm just used to doctors talking down to me.

[MaryFredette]

Thank you so much for this video. I needed to see that the more I get my aura migraines it means aura migraines even though my dr already told me this. You explained it waaaay better.

[jammin]

Very good video Dr Lee. I've been going through this for 24 years. It all started from 3 major retina surgeries. Resulting in no more vision in the right eye, scleral buckle and removal of my lens all on the right eye. Left eye had 2 different years of laser surgeries for pinholes. Left eye pupil was damaged from laser surgery, no longer contracts when in lights. Also, left eye has macula pucker, cataract and guttata. I suffer severe light sensitivity, aura migraines, which I call eyegraines. I get nauseated, dizzy, anxiety, moody and depression.
My left eye's vision is warped and blurry as well. New prescription eyewear doesn't help either. I have to wear hats, super dark wear over sunglasses. It still doesn't help much, unless it is totally overcast out. Still have to wear tinted glasses. If I don't wear sunglasses my vision is what I call Ugly vision. Even at night car lights hurt and just try and keep my eyes closed. I no longer drive. Sunlight, candle light and most lights are torture to me. I get bad eye migraines even with just millisecond of bright light, or out too long in light. It just kicks my butt and I have to cover my eyes completely. Pain in eyes can last for minutes to days. It goes from one eye to the other, my right eye feels like a deep paper cut as well sometimes.
I use prescribed moderate pain medication to help. I have tried Tylenol, Migraine types, Ibuprofen you name it and they do not help one bit. My pain medicine I use does not give me any side effects. It just helps my eye pains to not get extremely painful. Most GP Drs do not understand what I have been going or go through. Well I am glad I came across your video. So many people go through this and do not get respect or compassion shown to them. I truly know what it's like. I pray to God for everyone who suffers from this everyday and night. Thank you Dr Lee!
Forgot to add that my vision gets pixelated and I have thousands of tiny stationary dots throughout my vision day or night. At night i can still see the warped patterns as well. Was not ever like that until my surgeries...

[hishamshahzad]

Thanks doc im stuck in this from a long time any suggestions or what should we do to avoid this migraine

[MarkCastle]

I started getting these when I was around 13 after I fell over, hit my head and had concussion while at school in the playground. They're usually around once or twice a year and last 15 to 40 mins. I generally have to stop what I'm doing (especially if I'm driving) and just lay down and try to have a snooze to "wait it out". They start small, usually at the focal point which becomes a little "blurred" and reading is temporarily difficult.. imagine a smudge of muck on your glasses right at your focal point. Soon after you then see that it's actually becoming the kaleidoscope pattern but small at first only just surrounding your focal point. It then generally processes outward become like a waxing crescent moon shape that continuously grows (usually outward from the focal point towards the edges of the vision over the time period. It's always like a kaleidoscope and only rarely actually affects the focal point enough to make it so that I can't even see words on a page. I'm having one right now and about 10 minutes in.. it's currently above my focal point and curving around to the right of my vision. It's always made my question if doctors understand them when they ask.. "which eye is it in" to which the reply is.. it's in my minds eye, I can still see it when my eyes are closed. It feels like what is happening is that in those parts of the vision where it's visible it's the brain mixing up which parts of the vision the signal is coming from.. pretty much indeed what a kaleidoscope is doing. I really should make a VR experience for this so that doctors and medical professionals can understand it more. About 15 to 30 minutes in.. most of the right side of my vision from top to almost bottom in a crescent shape is affected and I generally start to feel a bit "woozy" like you get when you've got a headache but without the actual head pain. In the latter stages it kind of fades away and you return to normal but maybe still feel a bit of the after effects of 'woozyness' for want of a better word. It's not really complete nausea, not exactly anyway. Another 5 mins and it's now getting towards the far reaches of my visual field. If I move a finger left to right my finger kind of disappears like a blind spot when it passes through the kaleidoscope part. This one was quite a 'big' one.. and a bit more nauseas than many others.

[Sympatiko]

Thank you. I have had multiple episodes and as a kid couldn’t explain and as an adult gave up thinking it was normal. As explaining just sound like an excuse as I would hide in the dark till the episode passed.

[martymiller]

I have had unilateral vasospasm for years. It is only in one eye, no headache. Left eye or right eye, not both. Lasts for approximately 20 minutes. I am usually stressed and often bothered by bright light before an incident of this kind. If it happens while I'm driving, I have to find a place to pull over: very dangerous. Right now I'm 70 years old. I have also experienced occasional hallucinations: I'll think there is someone in my peripheral vision moving quickly. Also I have had aural hallucinations where it sounds as if someone is pounding "bam-bam-bam". That has happened when I turn my head suddenly. I don't know what causes all this, but stress is definitely a factor. Otherwise I'm in great shape really. I was on Citalopram for 10-12 years. Maybe that had something to do with it, don't know.

[jonathanmoore]

This is fascinating. I recently experienced on two occasions what i describe as kaleidoscope vision, A pulsing (3hz) small distortion in my view as an arc of prismatic shards of light, growing to 90deg then up to 180deg at which point vision returns to normal, i'd say whole episode ais about 15 minutes both times. First occurrence was 4 hours after coming out of a cardiac ablation, second occurrence a week later, have been on blood thinners since the ablation. Im a little anxious as read about TIA's, possible blindness etc (had MRI's/ various tests at stroke clinic after each occurrence and they cant find evidence of stroke, assuming it must of been a TIA but that wouldnt make sense for the second occurence (being anticoagulated so much). Im a bit of an odd case as lost sight in my left eye 30 years ago (had accident/ then enucleation) plus i used to get cluster migraines a lot, (not had for 10 years since i stopped smoking). I don't think these visions are associated with a headache because i dont get a headache - just sheer terror when it last developed on the highway. Plus now have I anxiety of what this could all mean.

[kirkmyles]

After endlessly searching for this I finally found it! Although sadly it has happened twice to me now, the first one was two years ago and it happened again, does that mean I have ischemic lesions?

[sWavrDude]

I just started getting these. A week and a half ago I suddenly had the a-typical zig zag line in the center of my sight in my left eye. It slowly expanded outward and after 20 some odd minutes it dissipated. Then about 4 days later it happened in right eye, but not as severe. Then today it happened in my left eye and went away after 20 mins. I went to an optometrist right after it happened and he said he couldn't see anything wrong with my eyes. That was when he mentioned that it could be an optical migraine, which I had never heard of before. I called and talked to my mom about it and she kind of chuckled and said that she's been getting those off and on since she was in her twenties, and she's now in her seventies. Needless to say, when it happens, it's very unsettling and gets my stress up even more. I have tried to take note of what I did just before it had happened, and I think that much of it is related to dehydration, because in all those instances when it happened in the past week and a half or so I know that I had not been drinking enough water. Also I was looking at my phone too much during the day. In all three instances that it happened it happened around the same time in the evening which was 5 to 6:00 p.m. . Today when it happened I had eaten some french fries and ketchup. After about 15 to 20 minutes of eating that that is when it happened. So I'm looking into the possibility that maybe excess carbohydrates, empty carbohydrates, perhaps the monosodium glutamate that they put in Heinz ketchup which they mask as natural flavoring could be a trigger for the optical migraines. In all three instances I did not have any kind of headache which preceded or followed an optical migraine. So I am a bit worried as the weather it could be neurological in nature and I can't help but worry that if it happens too often that I may lose my eyesight. At this point all I can do is pray, try to stay more hydrated during the day, and stay away from processed foods of any kind and see if that helps.

[lezlee]

I had my first one at 50 they were all way s curved and black and white I am now 73, about 3 years ago they changed they are now all mostly full circle and multi coloured, but I have never had a head ache, I take 2 migraine strength ibuprofen each time and usually they are gone within 30 minutes, o and lately I have been waking up with one that has never happened before.

[jkyoft]

I'm a 62 yrs old patient - after my left eye vitrectomy, I have had (mostly) continuous headaches for 4 weeks. I see a continuous crescent shaped aura, which off to the side. Most of the time I don't notice it.  The headache is unpleasant, but not horribly painful,
I usually take ibuprofen all day long. I can sleep at night, no problem. I'm hoping this will go away.

I do get regular migraines about once per month, so I recognize the aura, but although my regular migraines may have 
significant auras, I usually have little or no pain. 

My eye surgeon kind of minimized it when I mentioned it to him. He seems to think my regular migraines are somehow 
triggered by something, but he doesn't know what.

Could this be a continuous retinal migraine?

[MrsMacWifey]

Here's what I don't understand: Some people seem to equate "retinal migraine" with "migraine with aura." Are they synonymous? What is the difference, if any?

[bisratwolde]

Thank you for this explanation. Really helped me understand my symptoms.