Ever have an ocular migraine?

[Watchootognbout]

At this very moment I'm having an ocular migraine or a "Scintillating scotoma"
It's not painful.
But it is very colorful.
In my right eye there is a shimmering zigzag of rainbow colors.
It gradually moves across the field of vision.

For those who have never seen them.
Here's a gif animation.

I used to have these 30 something years ago,but I didn't know what they were.
I think they're harmless.
But a bit disconcerting.
(I just noticed that my avatar is a good representation of one)



And like THAT it's gone!

 

[gln1955]

Yes, I get ocular migraine occasionally for the past 30 years. A few times a year, but seem to be less often lately. I do not get headaches during or after these episodes. I've tried to determine what sets it off, but have not come up with a common trigger from things like fatigue, stress, caffeine, foods, alcohol, etc.

 

[BassicJazzy]

It's no big deal. My understanding is it's usually a really tiny blood vessel bursting somewhere in the eye. Of course there can be other, more serious things that can cause it too. They also call it kaleidoscope vision. Doesn't affect the central focal region, only the periphery. In my case, usually resolves within about 15 minutes.

First time it happened I thought "Wow, that acid I took 50+ years ago sure took a long time to kick in!"

 

[retslock]

Yes I've had something similar that the optometrist said was a migraine - jagged stripes that defy any attempt to focus on them. Always moving just to the side of my focus whenever I try to see them in more detail.
I also get something the optometrist could not explain. With my head on the pillow before sleep takes me away at night, I close my eyes and sometimes get the most spectacular coloured light show. Sometimes patterns, sometimes amorphous and irregular but always moving with spectacular bright colours. Usually the shapes get smaller only to be replaced by an identical larger shape beginning another cycle. This usually continues for about 5-10 minutes then it's gone. It's fascinating and very entertaining before I drop off. My daughter has this phenomenon too. No-0ne else that I know of has this peculiar kind of light show.

 

[pfschim]

yes! I've started to have these ocular migraines ...actually my Dr calls them migraines with aura. Same visual effects that the OP showed. Starts up randomly, and for me, it does kind of take over my vision in the affected eye. If possible, I just lie down and take deep breaths for a few minutes and the event usually passes within 10min. In my case, I have kind of been able to associate this effect with caffeine intake, so I have been watching that a bit.

A friend of mine gets these as well, although his resolve into a dull headache ... more migraine oriented I guess. Mine just go away and I have no residual issues.

Not a welcome development, but not a huge deal either .. at least for me

 

[Wasnex]

Maybe. I had what I described as a blind finger in the corner of one eye's vision. The problem occurred twice in the exact same spot and lasted for a week or more. The blindness eventually faded back to normal vision over multiple days. '

I started getting migraine headaches after these incidents. Over a few years, the frequency increased to the point where the migraines are chronic. I believe my triggers are food related and involve sensitivity to tyramine and related enzymes that are used in normal body functions. The body processes tyramine with one of the forms of Monoamine Oxidase (MAO). I recently found an article on people with genetically drive low MAO production and it matched my self-observations very closely.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Yes I've had something similar that the optometrist said was a migraine - jagged stripes that defy any attempt to focus on them. Always moving just to the side of my focus whenever I try to see them in more detail.
I also get something the optometrist could not explain. With my head on the pillow before sleep takes me away at night, I close my eyes and sometimes get the most spectacular coloured light show. Sometimes patterns, sometimes amorphous and irregular but always moving with spectacular bright colours. Usually the shapes get smaller only to be replaced by an identical larger shape beginning another cycle. This usually continues for about 5-10 minutes then it's gone. It's fascinating and very entertaining before I drop off. My daughter has this phenomenon too. No-0ne else that I know of has this peculiar kind of light show.

Huh. I routinely had this occur to me when I was a child, but I had all but forgotten about it until just now. It would be particularly intense in a dark room, but mine would only last a few minutes at most.

 

[Basvarken]

Yes, I have this quite often.

 

[BismarckHerring]

I have these sometimes, always followed by migraine headaches. Thankfully, they’ve getting less frequent and less intense as I get older.

I’ve also had a different kind of migraine aura called hemianopia a couple of times, where the left half of my visual field just disappeared. That really freaked me out the first time. Things suddenly just stopped having a left side. It wasn’t like I couldn’t see what was there, there was no ‘there’. A bit like the blind spot, but for half of the world. I remember reading something and getting very confused because all the words were weird. Then I realized I couldn’t see the first letters of the words.

So that last sentence would read something like ‘hen I lized I uldn’t ee he rst tters f he rds’.

Very scary, but it only lasted a couple of minutes. By the time I called a doctor it was gone and I had a one sided headache, and he quickly diagnosed it as a migraine with an aura.

 

[KohanMike]

I get them fairly often. I learned many years ago that they're caused by a higher intake of niacin. They've also increased since I started taking the blood pressure medication Losartan.

 

[viobass]

That's migraine with aura. I get them from time to time. Sometimes I get the headache, too. Sometimes I have trouble speaking. I'll say something but a word or two will be different than what I intended to actually say. It's a harmless neurological phenomenon caused by some sort of electrical cascade in the brain.

 

[LowActionHero]

My son used to get them frequently. I had one last year and described it to him. He said it sounded like what he would see. I turned all the lights off and layed down and it went away. Went back upstairs and it came back. Turned the lights off and layed down again and it went away again. Hasn't happened since.

 

[hbarcat]

I never had visual migraines until I experienced a serious traumatic accident where I needed surgery to replace a torn aorta. In the days following that, while I was in the ICU, I experienced numerous visual migraines per day. They were like multicolored fluorescent lights, arranged in a zigzag pattern, that started out small and then expanded into a large oval over the course of about 15 to 20 minutes before fading away. It was present in both eyes and it made no differfnce whether my eyes were open or closed. There was never a headache, or any other effect besides the visuals.

The medical staff told me that it was probably a side effect of the opiate based pain medication I was on but after I stopped taking those drugs, the visual migraines continued.

Months later, the migraines had reduced in frequency to about 4 to 6 per week and they've persisted to the present day.

The medical community doesn’t seem to know what causes them, but it must be significant that I had never had them until I experienced a severe trauma where I was clinically dead for a period of time and then recovered, after which time, I experienced these visual migraines multiple times per week for the past dozen years, now.

I strongly suspect it has something to do with fluctuations in blood pressure in the brain, because their frequency seems to increase when I have dosage alterations in my BP medication. Regardless of the specific cause, it definitely originates within the brain and not from the eyes.

 

[FugaziBomb]

Ever have an ocular migraine?

Yes.

 

[DaveMFM]

I get these from time to time. Trigger seems to be dim light with something really bright in the periphery. Like, a rehearsal in a dark church with a really bright window off to the side. When I'm trying to read. For example.

 

[JC BASS 91]

I had my first one when I was 16. Scared the stuffing out of me!! I thought I was going blind. I went to the ER and was told it was an ocular migraine.

Since then, I have discovered that they always precede a real, full blown, "unalive me now" migraine. However, I have found that when the splotchy, colorful vision issues start, if I take 800mg of Ibuprofen and a massive dose of caffeine (chug a Mt. Dew) and find a dark space for a little while, The splotchy vision goes away and no headache comes.

 

[Suspiciousness]

I got these in my late teens / early 20s, and the ocular migraine would usually be followed by a headache 30 minutes or so later.
Almost forgot about them until now, but I saw the pattern like "cracked lightning" in my vision while it was happening.

I also get something the optometrist could not explain. With my head on the pillow before sleep takes me away at night, I close my eyes and sometimes get the most spectacular coloured light show. Sometimes patterns, sometimes amorphous and irregular but always moving with spectacular bright colours. Usually the shapes get smaller only to be replaced by an identical larger shape beginning another cycle. This usually continues for about 5-10 minutes then it's gone. It's fascinating and very entertaining before I drop off. My daughter has this phenomenon too. No-0ne else that I know of has this peculiar kind of light show.

I might have this too, but in my case the bright colors are usually blue and red repeating in a sort of moving grid pattern.
They'll start large and slowly shrink (as if zooming out on a screen) and then suddenly be replaced by the larger pattern again.
There is also an amorphous pattern I sometimes see, but that doesn't tend to be brightly colored.

I started seeing these when I was a child, long before screens were a daily occurence in our lives.

 

[DWA2469]

At this very moment I'm having an ocular migraine or a "Scintillating scotoma"
It's not painful.
But it is very colorful.
In my right eye there is a shimmering zigzag of rainbow colors.
It gradually moves across the field of vision.

For those who have never seen them.
Here's a gif animation.
View attachment 7473772


I used to have these 30 something years ago,but I didn't know what they were.
I think they're harmless.
But a bit disconcerting.
(I just noticed that my avatar is a good representation of one)



And like THAT it's gone!

I have them several times a year, my boss has them as well! The first time I had one I thought I was stroking out! I have never been able to find a trigger! I am fortunate to not have headaches with them; however, I feel drained after having one!

 

[drwv]

Yes I've had something similar that the optometrist said was a migraine - jagged stripes that defy any attempt to focus on them. Always moving just to the side of my focus whenever I try to see them in more detail.
I also get something the optometrist could not explain. With my head on the pillow before sleep takes me away at night, I close my eyes and sometimes get the most spectacular coloured light show. Sometimes patterns, sometimes amorphous and irregular but always moving with spectacular bright colours. Usually the shapes get smaller only to be replaced by an identical larger shape beginning another cycle. This usually continues for about 5-10 minutes then it's gone. It's fascinating and very entertaining before I drop off. My daughter has this phenomenon too. No-0ne else that I know of has this peculiar kind of light show.

Hypnogogic hallucinations, they’re quite common.

Mine personally are reds, greens, and deep blue on black.

 

[thisheregiraffe]

Yes, I get these from time to time, and I really don't enjoy it. Not painful exactly. Just a bad experience. The only relief is to go to a darker place and close my eyes for a while. Stay away from screens until I'm sure it's gone away.