Author Topic: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?  (Read 8097 times)

Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« on: 07 April, 2008, 09:09:16 pm »
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #1 on: 07 April, 2008, 09:17:09 pm »

Does anyone else have experience of them?

Vicky

I get a similar effect occasionally, though never with pain. Mine starts in the peripheral vision and slowly expands until I can only see clearly straight ahead. The only explanation I have managed to find is that it's related to migraines.

Salvatore

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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #2 on: 07 April, 2008, 09:24:14 pm »
I get them, but without pulsing or any other pain, or any other symptoms, but the disturbance is as you describe. Exactly like this. I don't know what causes it in my case. It's happened first thing in the morning and in the middle of a very relaxing holiday, so it's not overwork or stress in my case.

I feel guilty about calling what I get a migraine, because doing so generates more sympathy than it deserves, but I once went to my GP about it, and was referred to a consultant neurologist, who said it was a migraine, so who am I to argue.
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #3 on: 07 April, 2008, 09:28:57 pm »
I've had a few.
Head pain is a late, minor feature with me.
I've had disturbance of speech with one, as well.
Not had anything recently though.

andygates

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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #4 on: 07 April, 2008, 09:33:22 pm »
I get the sparkly floaters, through to great big ones like you've been staring into a bright light and looked away, plus pain, plus an itchy temple.  More water and sleep, less caffeine, and check life for random stressors (moving office, plumbing hell, huge backlog).  About double the recommended dose of ibuprofen staves them off until the end of the day.
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #5 on: 07 April, 2008, 10:11:35 pm »
Ouch--glad you're getting over it, Peli. Robyn (my wife) gets the non-ocular sort, and the Gods of Husbandly Empathy visited one upon me once just so I'd have a clue. Oddly, unlike some who get the lights without the pain, she gets the pain (and very bad nausea etc.) without the lights.  :(
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #6 on: 07 April, 2008, 10:18:56 pm »
Not sure why, but damp towels heated in the microwave and applied (carefully!) to the face seem to help Robyn a lot.
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #7 on: 07 April, 2008, 10:28:52 pm »
Before changing jobs I used to suffer badly with head pain, nausea and disturbed vision on a regular basis. After trying most of what the doctor could think for me to pop I went to an acupuncturist.

Stress, poor diet, lack of sleep and caffeine were playing havoc with my gall bladder apparently and after a couple of sessions with pins stuck in my knees and ankles I was and still am much better. It really did work for me and I would recommend it very highly.

I took care of the causes myself but she treat the symptoms. I now have a session every couple of years if I need it.

I moved house and found a new practitioner and described the symptoms to him but not the treatment I had received previously. He stuck the pins in exactly the same places as before. It's quite common apparently.

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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #8 on: 07 April, 2008, 10:33:12 pm »
That's interesting. How does your experience compare with this.

redshift

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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #9 on: 07 April, 2008, 10:43:51 pm »
Yep.  I get haloes, the sparklies, and sometimes what seems like a negative of a firework sparkler.  I've also seen an effect that appears to be flickering of a lamp, which presaged the same thing.  The headache that follows is enormous, and requires the traditional darkened room + drugs to kill.  Once or twice I've developed them whilst at work, and in a room full of TV monitors it's about as crippling as I could imagine.  Relief can be had by taking ibuprofen at the first inkling it's on the way, and heading for bed.  Strangely, Yogic 'Pose of a child' (balasana) is more bearable than lying down, which may be to do with neck/back tension.

It's a symptom of too much work, not enough sleep, high stress times (long days looking at monitors, fixed focus distances, no variation etc).  I get maybe two or three a year.

L
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #10 on: 08 April, 2008, 10:50:46 am »
What everyone else said.

I used to get one or two a year.  But the new drugs really work; I just take one when the flashy-visual-stuff starts, and the headache (which would have lasted 24 hours or more) never comes.

Imigran (brand-name) containing Sumatriptan.  Get yourself down to your GP and get him to prescribe some.
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #11 on: 08 April, 2008, 11:34:51 am »
Stepdaughter gets them. One trigger is blue lights - particularly the blue LEDs that were so popular in xmas lights this xmas gone.

She finds Bidor seems to help (yeah I know homeopathy doesn't work, try telling that to a kid who finds it helps).
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #12 on: 08 April, 2008, 08:12:07 pm »
I only get the visual disturbances, don't generally get the pain associated with it.

Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #13 on: 08 April, 2008, 08:13:52 pm »
Apparently this is what I have been suffering with quite badly for the last couple of months.    :(


Daz

Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #14 on: 08 April, 2008, 09:29:45 pm »
I get the lights but so far I have never had any pain. They start out wide, as a small patch and gradually build until I have to look out of the side of my vision to focus on what I'm looking at. They seem to last up to 30 mins and just fade quicker than they appear. I don't seem to have any reasons, stress, tiredness, etc., as to why they start

Lonewolff

Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #15 on: 08 April, 2008, 09:36:42 pm »
I get the lights but so far I have never had any pain. They start out wide, as a small patch and gradually build until I have to look out of the side of my vision to focus on what I'm looking at. They seem to last up to 30 mins and just fade quicker than they appear. I don't seem to have any reasons, stress, tiredness, etc., as to why they start

Be thankful you have no pain. I get these sometimes (normally it's a sign I have been looking at a computer screen for far far too long in one sitting) and end up unable to see anything for about 10-15 mins, during which it feels very much like my eyes are swelling and trying to escape from my head. Not a pleasant experience.

Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #16 on: 09 April, 2008, 01:39:15 pm »
Similar to most of you.

Family history of migraine.  I've been getting retinal disturbances too frequently over the past year or so.

Vision disturbance lasts much less than it used to but head aches and/or neck muscle pain (similar to neuralgia?) can hang around for a couple of days.  Almost got over the need for a darkened room and a bed but do need to just sit doing nothing for 45 minutes or so and then a relaxing stroll round the site in the fresh air.

Two occurences last week and vision disturbance started again just after I sat at the screen to read yacf.  Cannot see centrally, typing with head turned to one side.

Had enough. Going downstairs to sit idly in a chair ad have a cup of tea.

Probably connected to a silly day at work yesterday, getting to bed at about 0100 and getting up to stay at about 0430.  Used to be able to do that when I was 20 but now, 40 years later, I struggle.

Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #17 on: 09 April, 2008, 04:10:15 pm »
Does anyone else have experience of them?

Vicky

My eyes have cleared and I'm back at the office PC.

Did you recover fully Vicky?   

I've just booked a day off tomorrow - hopefully get a bike out and have a wander along a canal path to find a pub for a coffee.

Jacomus

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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #18 on: 11 April, 2008, 02:17:42 pm »
I can get something similar, but maybe not the same.

If I am pushing hard on the mo'bike - say at a track day, where I am crouched low and looking forwards out of the top of my eyes (as if trying to look at my eyebrows from the inside) I used to get swimming vision, that then cleared but into doublevision, and shortly after that happened, I would get stars and black bits swimming around. This also happens if I ride my bicycle using tt bars for any length of time.

Don't know if this could be being caused by your head position?
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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #19 on: 12 April, 2008, 10:38:16 am »
My sincere sympathies to all migraine sufferers.
Up until about 6 years ago, I also suffered from regular migraine headaches, about once every 2 months. Fortunately these were not of the visual variety, but there was a variable length ill defined muzzy prodrome that allowed me to prepare and pre-medicate. The worst ones could lay me out completely for a few hours. Usually one sided in horrible.
Fortunately I then discovered that regular and substantial cycling resulting in increased fitness, lower blood pressure, less stress and weight loss all but cured them and I have had very few since.
Its amazing what 30 miles a day on the bicycle can achieve.
Looking back on those days, I dread not being able to cycling to work every day.

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Re: Ocular migraines - does anyone else get them?
« Reply #20 on: 13 April, 2008, 01:14:12 am »
I get them when I get angry, big block colours followed by a throbbing migrane.
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