What Is An Ocular Migraine? | Knock Knock Eye
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- This week on Knock Knock Eye, I share what has recently been going on in my life, before I give you the inside scoop on the correct way to clean your glasses and talk about Ocular Migraines.
-
To Get Tickets to Wife & Death: You can visit www.Glaucomflecken.com/live
We want to hear YOUR stories (and medical puns)! Shoot us an email and say hi! knockknockhi@human-content.com
Can’t get enough of us? Shucks. You can support the show on Patreon for early episode access, exclusive bonus shows, livestream hangouts, and much more! - / glaucomflecken
Today's episode is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient Experience (DAX). It's like having a virtual Jonathan in your pocket. If you would like to learn more about DAX Copilot check out nuance.com/discoverDAX and ask your provider for the DAX Copilot experience.
Produced by Human Content 
Приколы
The talk about migraines starts at 18:00
🦸♂️
THANK YOU
The first time I had an ocular migraine, I didn't know that was what was happening. My vision was pixelating from the periphery to the center like a scrambled cable channel. I remember thinking "What do I want to be the last thing I see before I go blind?" My vision came back in about 45 minutes.
I lost about 90% of my vision, huge hole in both eyes field of view, and I legitimately thought I was having a massive stroke. It came back slowly over the next 30-45 minutes, and then I had the worst headache of my life about 2 hours later that lasted most of the rest of the day.
They are horrible. But I do feel so lucky that the occular part is a warning about the migraine to come because it gives me time to head off the worst of the pain. If I take Excederin Migraine while the ocular stuff is happening I have - so far, knock on wood -- managed to avoid the pain that typically follows even though my head still feels the presence of the migraine, which is a rather odd feeling.
It’s hell on earth that comes every time I go outside without my sunglasses where the rest of my day is avoiding light like a vampire and throwing up from the pain.
3d movies are an extreme no-no for me - I go ocular migraine and straight into a migranic seizure the one time I saw one at NASA. Haven't risked it since. But that was the only thing that triggers them - video games are fine. But 3d morphing graphics in 2d also will trigger it, like those 'eye trick' posters and art, will send me straight to heck
Try Avulux migraine glasses
Hello, fellow vampire! You are not alone.
I spend far too much time at the office in agony with shade 5 welding glasses and a wide brimmed hat on - because my office has a "standard light level" that approximates the light at the Bonneville Salt Flats in July.
@@pibkaveronica7622 I have prescription sunglasses I just also have adhd combined presentation so it’s a constant game of where did I leave them last
@@pariahzero I’m a dog groomer the lighting is mostly sunlight with the big store front windows my prescription glasses help but my house has blackouts and more orange lighting
Correction: speech aphasia and written dyslexia is also a migraine with aura symptom. Mine cycle through blind spots, rainbows, speech aphasia, dyslexia. Woo, then I get vomitting, hallucinations of odors like pond water, face blindness and teeth root pain. Then a 3 day stabbing headache. And a week of derealization and adhd where I feel too short. There's a lot here.
Wow
I usually land at the point where with great effort I can identify each letter as an individual one like "a" "n" "d" but never in my live could I imagine what those letters could mean when put together as and. It's interesting and scary at the same time. Also seeing the eyes of a friend twice, one meter apart can also be disconcerning.
Also I would like to correct you, a lot of other symptoms of it can be very similar to a stroke just much slower, so the first time I got one I was in the hospital due to suspicion of a stroke. It was mostly Vision loss and weakness in my arms, weird speech when writing/talking to relatives and afterwards a shit ton of vomiting.
Same!😖
1am in Australia, and I'm watching Dr G talking eyeballs. It's one of my favourite parts of the week. ❤
THANK YOU!!!! I am 67 years old and had my first (and thankfully only...so far) occular migraine several months ago. I was PETRIFIED!! It was like looking in a kaleidoscope, very pretty, but terrifying. I thought I was going blind. It was on a Sunday so I self diagnosed using Google. It lasted 30 minutes and there was no pain. I went to my eye doctor the next day and he said my eye looked fine. But you went into a whole lot more detail and I truly appreciate that! Thank you, again!!
My visual migraine events are never followed by an actual headache. They are weird though and fortunately infrequent. Rippling multi-colored geometric streams on the periphery of my sight or white, orange, black Mondrian-style images. I've even experienced a gray colored blank spot in the center of my vision in one eye. These are rare events so I don't worry too much. A more persistent thing is standing in a doorway on a sunny day and seeing those peripheral ripples. Everyone experiences these differently it seems.
I mostly get the bright colored jagged line ones, but I occasionally get the gray ones -I call them “cloud” ocular migraines because they present like a cartoon storm cloud .
I get ocular migraines, and it is so weird they don't hurt.
The extra fun part about glasses is when one of those itty-bitty tiny screws comes out and now you have to try and put it back in when you have blurry near vision.
I once had a screw come out while on a plane. Fortunately, my friend who was flying with me happened to find it on my seat after I got up to go to the bathroom, and my fingernails were long enough to screw my frame back together.
I mostly experience migraines with aura, including vertigo.Flashes of light, spots dancing in front of my eyes, my pupils will dilate, and my eyes will also spasm when looking side to side. I take an injectable for it, which has lessened the severity but does not stop the aura symptoms from happening. I always found it fascinating how the aura symptoms are pretty much my early warning signs that I'm about to have a migraine.
My first time I was driving my daughter home after picking her up from my mother in law's house when she was about 2, and I was pregnant with her little sister. Absolutely terrifying. I pulled over in the university nearby and spent the next 45 minutes trying to keep my daughter happy and praying it went away. The next day was a frenzy of going to the OB to make sure it wasn't anything more serious, then to my optometrist who was able to figure out what it was. Mine are an outline of a football shape with shimmering rainbows, the best I can describe it is like a psychedelic kaleidoscope.
Now I know when I get one, it's time to get my butt home in case it turns into a migraine with pain.
The way you described these sounds so pretty and you are so calm about it. Mine came up when I was in the midst of experiencing the worst migraine of my life. I had it for a few months at that point and none of the medications or ER cocktails touched the pain. And they progressed over weeks, generally when I wake up first thing in the morning. I started seeing the world flash like I was in a room with a strobe light. Then if anything moved, I would see like a trail, like freeze frame images from when the strobe light flashed on superimposed on top of eachother and slowly fading. Then I started seeing lightening bolts, crackly patterns, in front of my vision, they kept progressing. I remember trying to explain my fireworks to a friend who asked if I saw color, and I said that update hasn’t been installed yet. Because a lot of it reminded me of early screen savers from the 90s. And every morning I was waking up with new additions to the visual disturbances. I was also falling asleep lot, or I would go to pour liquid into a cup, miss the cup, and pour it everywhere. I just looked up the occipital lobe and realize something was likely off in my depth perception and visual processing. I fell and injured my ankles pretty severely getting off a city bus. It really was a miserable time. The migraine pain itself started the day I was admitted to the psych ward for suicidal depression-my only stay in a psych ward, and I believe a med was much to blame. But getting anyone to believe and property treat the migraine that just got worse the longer I stayed was an exercise in futility. I was eventually diagnosed with IIH and migraine. And some sort of cognitive issue-it was never labeled dementia, but neuropsych testing showed that my memory and cognitive skills had been compromised. My depression was stabilized, but I feel like my emotions have been more extreme and harder to manage ever since. Getting treatment has been frustrating because even the smartest doctors can’t figure it out, and my psych issues mean that my report of my own symptoms gets dismissed way too often. I had a great team of doctors for a long time after, got amazingly well, but then I moved right before covid.
Ohh…….oh my gosh.
Dude. Praying you find new really really good doctors who find the problem and fix it cus that sounds miserable.
You poor thing, hang in there! Im rooting for you. I've had the joy of how docs treat undiagnosed medical things and having my descriptions not being given basic respect plus I've experienced the ocular migraines -- all of it on a much smaller scale than you describe and that's frustrating and unpleasant enough -- so I'm feeling much sympathy and empathy for you. I hope the worst is in your past and you get ever increasing improvement ever faster by the day!
@@SusanWillful the worst of my symptoms are treated. A lot has been adjusting to my new normal and accepting that life will never be the same again. What I need more than anything is support in day to day life, and it’s hard for a doctor who is just meeting me to understand or see my struggles
@@stealthlock6634 thank you. I hope the worst is behind me.
I get these too, and my son seems to have inherited them. I see colours like a prism, he sees white balls. Neither of us get headaches with it, just nausea. I’ve learnt from him that in our case, its linked to dehydration. Sometimes I can cut the duration of them shorter by having a glass of water.
Although doing medicine can be a lot rewarding and fulfilling, it is also one of the most toxic and depressing professions.
Physicians are surrounded by misery (not intended to be offensive), often struggling against the pressure of failing or being wrong. So, whenever I see you or any other talking about their experiences with other physicians and seeing the impact all of you have in the community (and even with people outside of it), I feel very grateful.
I'm not in the medicine space myself, but I have a lot of friends that are and just seeing how you make their day with your shorts, or bring positibity to their jobs and daily life, makes very happy.
I started having ocular migraines at 60. They occur about 4 times a year, I see a backwards C that is shimmering in neon bright colors. It doesn’t look like a natural light, it looks electric. It’s in the far right upper quadrant of my vision. They last about 20-30 min and I get slightly nauseous afterwards.
The way your described ocular migraines coming on later in life is exactly what happens with vestibular migraine, causing new recurrent dizzy spells!
With vestibular migraines, can you have the very symptoms but not have the headaches or migraines?
My parents flew back from Europe last year and my Mum had some sort of cough or cold. She was fine but then one night suddenly felt unwell & tired (and I think she originally had headaches) and woke up to go to the loo during the night, and she couldn't even stand up to get out of bed as the room was spinning just sitting up.
She's had this since October or November last year, it's now April. It's lessened since then but still impacting her. She's been seeing a physio and doing vertigo exercises, and it's helped a little.
She went to the nose, throat and ear specialist to see if it's an inner ear thing and they couldn't figure it out.
I think she's due to see a vertigo specialist soon.
But I can't help but wonder if it's possibly vestibular migraines?
you posted this on a day I'm home from work because of a migraine lol. Here is a question for you: what is your perspective when a patient wants to give up on treatment? For example, my chronic migraines are debilitating, but I get sick of going to various specialists, dealing with insurance, constantly having appointments, feeling like I'm somehow disappointing my doctors or misrepresenting my symptoms because my headaches are so stubborn to treat, etc. I go on a carousel of treatment every few years and I always end up giving up because after a certain point, just living with the migraines feels easier than living with the migraines AND dealing with medical stuff constantly. I know how to manage my symptoms and am very used to it. Just curious what this experience is like from the physician's point of view.
I'm seventy-four and had my first ocular migraine when I was twenty and have had them ever since. It took years for me to figure out what they were. They tend to come in clusters but not necessarily. I have gone years without experiencing one. I tried and tried to figure out a trigger, the only thing that I have found is that a bright light or flash of bright light like the reflection of sunlight off of a closing car door for instance, is the one thing that I can identify, but not every time. They happen in my sleep; I have awoken from a deep sleep with the visual aura. They seem to intensify during the spring when pollen is high, but I am not sure about that. All in all, I would like to have some relief, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards, as I can never tell when I'm going to get one until I start seeing that little blur in my vision that grows slowly into a crescent-like blob with an undulating technicolor geometric patterns in its outline. It lasts for somewhere around 30 to 45 minutes, sometimes a low-grade headache follows, but not always. Thanks Dr. G for this discussion.
Thanks to this episode, I now know that I have had at least one true visual migraine. It was like seeing flashing casino lights in the peripheral vision of my right eye. I saw mostly primary colors, which alternated and definitely were in a geometric pattern (bars or triangles). It was an interesting experience to be sure!
One connection i always find interesting is that inter ocular pressure opening pressures on an LP is about the same scale
I'm a GP and this is where I come to update my very limited knowledge of eyeballs.
I’ve had the classic circle with jagged lines that expanded over several minutes. Physically thought I had stared at a bright light/sun (while being inside a large office with no direct sight to the sun or bright light to stare at) lasted much longer then when you do stare at a bright light.
Also had one where I suddenly couldn’t read the words on the screen at work… could see them… knew they were words and that I should know what it says… couldn’t read them. Lasted a few minutes and was very scary at the time. No other symptoms - saw bunch of doctors they all suggested ocular migraine as they couldn’t find any other cause.
I had my first ocular migraine during English class in high school I viscerally remember them moment I realized it was like I was looking at the world through a piece of fabric. I never got a headache after them but also never get a visual aura before having a migraine.
Gotta run to work at inpatient rehab (THANKS for DAX) so will watch this in its entirety after my work day. Thank you so much for covering ocular migraine. I have had 3 of them in the past 8 years. They are so weird, each has lasted about 40 minutes, none have happened at home (always during work, wonder why). Will be utterly interested to hear more details.
Been waiting for the ocular migraine episode, thank you!!
I wear my glasses into the shower, and I wash them with soap and water. The shower spray cleans off the bits that get stuck in the crack between the lens and frame.
When I do makeup, I clean my glasses with spray and two microfiber cloths - one to get most of the oils off and one for the final drying and streak removal.
My worst ocular migraine coincided with my mum having a heart attack. What a lot of fun the two of us had sitting in an A/E in the west of Scotland on a Saturday night. Mum with her chest pain and me hallucinating. The only two sober people there😂I did telemedicine for many years, it’s not as easy as people think.
I wonder if the ocular migraine is linked to the stress of your Mum’s heart attack?
@@CC-kj5zh It was a side effect of medication to stop bleeding I’d been given in the morning - I’d attended a different A/E. The stress definitely made it worse though as her ambulance failed to turn up and I had to drive her to hospital. Luckily it was around 4am so the roads were quiet😕Not a night I’ll forget.
@@buffys3477 thanks for your response. Hope all is well now🙏🏻❤️
I have had a few of these ocular migraines and they increased when I was recently diagnosed with high blood pressure after having severe nosebleeds which required a couple of AandE trips …also on a Saturday night and in Scotland!
So I have decreased my hbp meds as I read in the side effect info that it could cause ‘visual disturbances’.
Hopefully the scary ocular migraines will stop.
I have a past history of migraines. Fortunately they stopped years ago. Now I get ocular migraines: zigzags in the upper right of my visual field and scintillations spreading across. They last 20 minutes on the dot. I might get a very slight headache afterwards.
I love your videos so much! Thank you for making them ❤ Would it be possible to cover RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa) in a future episode? Would be great ❤
You may be the only person to be this enthusiastic about Fargo ! It is indeed flat and windy. I live right across the river!
You were mentioning telehealth from the POV of providers, but not from patients. Many disabled patients need telehealth, esp in a world where rapacious hospital management signaled ASAP that it was ok not to mask anymore. Siting in a waiting room for an hour or more with maskless med center personnel and patients when COVID hasn't gone away and measles is making a comback is not a trivial risk. Taking that risk to get looked at for 5 min and sent on your way is just bonkers. Could the software for it be better? Yes. And that comes down to providers and patients demanding accessible, privacy-protecting telehealth with intuitive user interfaces.
Brilliantly said ❤
Thank you for doing the dishes with me Dr G!
Honestly I would trade those pretty sounding ocular migraines for the kind I get any day! The only visual effect I get with my migraines is hypersensitivity same with all my other senses.
I call them “scribbles”, as it looks like the signals are being scratched upon in a lightning-type jagged shape- which moves and flows as it progresses. I had my first one in my mid-30’s. I’ve had classic migraines since about age 4.
I have had migraines for most of my life, but my ocular migraines did not begin until about 30 years ago. Knowing I was at risk for detached retinas due to the shape of my eyeballs, I was convinced the first time I experienced an ocular migraine that my retina had detached. I hurried to the medical office where I worked, and after checking my eyes and seeing nothing wrong, the doctor concluded after hearing my description of the pretty kaleidoscope I had seen that what I saw was actually an ocular migraine. 🌈✨
As an epileptic, due to occipital lobe damage, ocular migraines have always confused me, because they sound like focal (aka simple partial) seizures. I had migraines growing up, maybe a couple of times a year, but they never had a visual element to them. Now, if I have that precursor of a blinking spot, and it turns into a rainbow blinking spot, a grand mal (aka tonic-clonic) seizure immediately follows. If I can close my eyes and relax, and it never progresses to the rainbow, it usually stops after a bit, and I'm fine - sometimes I end up with a headache or a migraine (depending on how bad the "aura" was) afterwards. An "aura" is actually a seizure, just happening on one side of the brain, which is why I say that ocular migraines just sound like focal seizures to me. I would imagine there's been some sort of research into this...I'll be on Google for the next, however long.
Hypnopompic hallucinations are also pretty weird. I see like diamonds in a grid pattern when I first wake up, but I blink once and they're gone.
I enjoyed this episode
I just wanted to say that, thanks to Knock Knock Eye, I've finally booked a long-overdue eye exam. Honestly, I should have done it a while ago - there's an eye clinic literally around the corner from my house.
I have had migraines 2+ times a week since I was like 5. Until I was 23, doctors gaslit my parents and I, and refused to acknowledge that they were migraines and not just headaches. Then they tried to tell me it was weight related (I was 140lbs at 5'5). I finally got an eye doctor willing to diagnose my migraines at 23, and a gp to treat my migraines at 28 and they immediately connected they're directly related to my cortisol levels. I still cannot get a referral to a neurologist :(
I use a silk scarf to clean my eye glasses. The scarf is made for cleaning glasses. Lifesaver! Been dealing with glasses for 40 years
I have to use my shirt sometimes...when I'm at work 60' up a tree mate!
Even if I remember to bring a microfibre cloth, my glasses are sweaty, covered in tree dust and I have to wipe them.
It's gonna be what it's gonna be.
I have had these migraines all my life, Tried to explain to Drs ny symptoms and no one seemed to know. When i was in my late 30s(i am in my 60s) I mentioned this to a friend and she knew right away. Pregnancy made them worse and more frequent. At least i now what they are now.
I feel like you’re a mind reader to describe my eye migraines so precisely!
Oof, migraine. I've got chronic intractable migraine with status migrainosus. Aka my pain fluctuates but never goes to zero. It's rough. My pain scale is so skewed it's hard to get most doctors to take me seriously. Also corneal abrasion is a 10/10? Wow, no wonder the pediatrician didn't think I'd injured my cornea because the only pain was from light, otherwise it only felt mildly irritated. And that was before my migraine started.
I've been getting ocular migraine semi-regularly since I was 13 (21 as of now). They usually look like TV static but more shimmery and bright and fill up my whole field of vision. I usually get a head rush from it or really dizzy; have fallen several times from it but it's not that regular. In the last couple years, I've been getting some numbness in my fingers, sometimes including my face.
Might be a neck problem. A friend and I have had that kind of numbness, both of us have neck nisc problems.
I was examined at a local eye hospital. Yes. Eye hospital here in Birmingham. I was having vision distortions in one eye. I went thru some horrendous test that were like torture. No conclusion. Told my GP and he said I had ocular migraines. Also found that I had mild HTN. Treated HTN and no more vision problems.
What is HTN?
It really cheered me up to hear about those medical folks in Fargo getting excited enough to wear unicorn headbands and closer shirts :) And thanks for the very clear instructions on cleaning glasses!
Thanks you for doing this one. I get ocular migraines. The first time I had one, I thought I was having a stroke or a retinal detachment! My boyfriend had a retinal detachment once, and, as you know, recovery was slow and "not fun at all". Say, when are you going to start selling Dr. Glaucomflecken Sunglasses? Summer is almost here!
Doc - here's a complaint; those of us with strobe and flicker rate migraine can't stand those new digital retina machines like the Optomap. The target sequence of blue green red is horrendous, especially if the tech wants multiple attempts. That other machine with the neon blue target laser strobe is also awful. Please tell optomap to gfy.
I had horrible migraines, pretty frequently (several times a week). I went to a neurologist, they took an MRI and said nothing was wrong (apart from living in a city apparently, don't know how they saw that from the MRI), and then they gave me a drug saying it is very unlikely to solve it, but it's worth a try. I took that drug for 1-2 months (don't remember the details), and I only have them like once every 2 months now. I really hope this treatment is not as unlikely to work for other people as my doctor said, because that changed my life significantly, and I hope anyone who suffers from migraines can prevail.
I get a visual migraine once a year. It starts with blind spot in the center of my vision, that forms a "static" ring that is over half a hour moving outward. When the ring disappears the real migraine sets in. Then blinking or moving my eyes hurt my brain.
Thank you. When I was first diagnosed with an ocular migraine, I was just told to ignore it because it lasts for under an hour. Later, I went in because it presented different. They did a CAT scan and discovered a 35mm tumor. As far as I am concerned, do the CAT scan to confirm it is an ocular migraine.
I couldn’t agree more. I have an MRI scheduled in three weeks. My last episode took half my field of vision within five minutes. I couldn’t drive home fast enough. I was so scared!! I’m scared now to think what it’ll be.
@@sherrieschmidt6869 Hang in there. I fully get it. I had episodes for 20 years before they actually looked. I can tell you 7 years post op, if they do find something, it is amazing what they can do to combat it. If they find nothing, now you know why your vision is going. Because it does not hurt AND the effects are temporary, this becomes more of a nuisance than a crisis. Best of luck.
Podcast recommendations from Dr Glaucomflecken!
I have been new to ocular migraines, mine is a big reversed C with nice diamond light effect but no colors and no headache
Dang! Here this whole time i have been referring to my migraines as "ocular migraines" because they happen due to the optic nerve being pushed on by blood vessels. But theyre full-fledged migraines and none of this shape-visualizing happens and it lasts for hours or days lol. Very informative doc! Thank you!
I went to a neurologist recently because I twitch
He was a professor of neurology at the medical school
The dude was wearing a bowtie
I didn't laugh but it definitely caught me off guard
Dr Glauc described my ocular migraines to a T. I get visual disturbances but no headaches. I have had them most of my adult life and they seem to occur when I'm really tired or stressed. I can go for months and not have one. Always tell your primary care physician if you get one. Mine said that while they don't damage the eyes, they can increase risk of stroke so your doctor should be aware.
mine are like kaleidoscopes, jagged moving zigzags, very colourful, totally exhausting, also sometimes impacts on my language processing, and can make me dizzy and slightly nauseous (especially if I get one whilst presenting a ppt or something and have to focus). I used to get migraine with aura alot, in my 20s they reduced (and I learned my triggers) but now I get visual migraines, which vary in frequency from 0 in a month to 3 back to back in a day.
Ooh, going to have to watch this one later! Hildegard of Bingham treated hers as prophetic visions!
Holy crap glad I tuned into this! A day late though. 😢 I have semi been on the right path with cleaning my glasses! I started running them under warm water which I found just cleaned it. Then letting it air dry (while I go for a shower so it's dried by the time I'm out lol).
But if not, then I was drying them with the soft tissues... And yes I clean my glasses with my shirt soooo I probably scratched them ages ago lol.
But I probably have the anti scratching on them I'm like -8 so pretty blind. Or I dried them with the glasses cleaning cloth.
But now I'm going to get the mild dishwashing detergent and rinse it in warm water and let it air dry. Or make sure I use the cleaning cloth lol. 😅
I'm not too worried about the nose slips. Most optometrists in Australia just replace them for free. 😊 But I do have isopropyl alcohol... (I'm in IT lol) So I could just use that for the nose slips too!
Thanks so much Dr Glaucomflecken!!
OMs. Always a party blast from Woodstock when you don't need it!!!
I heard that you can see 50 miles in any direction from Lubbock but if you stand on a tuna fish can you can see for 150 miles.
Nothing says Minnesota like hotdish. Made from all those things leftover in the back of the fridge.
had my first ocular migraine at 59.. whole center of my vision went white....flashing...after eye Dr. Appointment and Nurology appointments..had MRI.. and a cat scan..they did not find anything so. they just said they happen so just lay down when they happen cause I cant see.. But now I dont have regular migraines anymore...so I guess its a trade off. I do have double vitrius detactment.. had Cateract surgery...in 2022.. both eyes .. still get those Ocular Mirgaines about once every few months...they are better than the mind blowing Mirgraines I use to get crying and throwning up in the floor.
I had one ocular migraine. I was teaching, and there as no one to take over my class. I thought I was dying.
I struggled with multiple types of migraines from the age of like 10-18. It started with the numbness in the right side of my body. Then the visual/ocular migraine came into play a little later, sometimes both would happen. And then after it goes away (30-45 minutes). Then a small headache would happen and gets WAY worse over the course of 30 minutes. The headache is debilitating but not as long as some people but its usually like 8-10 hours. So it takes me out for a whole day, with sensitivity to light and sounds. I had one recently but it was medicine causation, but I'm sure it was triggered by something back when i had them pretty frequently.
I've had ocular migraines my entire life, set off by stress or flashing lights. I didn't even know they were different from a regular migraine, or had a name, until I was in my late 20's. I thought everybody just went half-blind whenever they got a migraine! I don't drive because of them - I can lose 50% of my fov within a few minutes, under the wrong conditions. I can get the floating ball-shapes as well, but they aren't too bad, being more of a warning sign that I need to relax and stop using my eyes for a few minutes, before I trigger something worse. I'd always described he visual phenomenon as a grey-silver-shimmery haze, like static on a tv screen. I am, somewhat perversely, glad to read here that other folk can have similar issues. It always helps a lot to have a name available to use for explaining and understanding these problems.
Flash of bright light does it for me tto. Once it was from the shine off water drops on a shrub when I opened the front door and looked outside right after it rained but was bright out. Kinda strange.
On the topic of body medicine connecting to Opthalmology, you might mention that polycystic Kidney disease is sometimes first suspected from a retinal examination.
“You almost don’t deserve eyes…”. Dr. G throwing serious shade! 😂
My ocular migraines are my warning of a bigger migraine or a cluster headache.
I’m curious about the ocular migraines that last 3 minutes or so. I was at lunch a few months ago and (for the first time in my life and never since) the upper half of the visual field of just my right eye went grey for about a minute or 3. It went away, with no pain at all. I got a workin 1 hour later at my ophthalmologist, and he said it was likely an ocular migraine. It was a very weird effect. No problems since. FYI I was a -10 to -13 myope until cataract surgery.
For cleaning, I've just gotten into the habit of just doing it as part of my weekly injection routine where as I'm waiting for the topical novocaine to kick in, I take some of the rubbing alcohol and a couple squares of TP. Works pretty good
I’ve always noticed my eyes do some weird things that no eye doctor has been able to account for and my neurologists haven’t been able to either. If you haven’t done an episode on these things already could you do one on any impact things like hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and epilepsy have on the eyes? (I specifically have Rolandic epilepsy of childhood and juvenile absence epilepsy if that matters). Both my parents and I (and partners I’ve had over the years) have noticed my eyes do weird things and never really got any answers about why they might do that, and I always want to learn more about my body and why it might do certain things!
One day past my first cataract surgery & as a victim of both eye issues & migraines (with a few cluster & thunderclap headaches thrown in) i found this interesting. Migraines started around age 4, at 5 or 6 I had an eye patch & exercises for lazy eye (right eye), got glasses at 9 & have needed them ever since, although I was told they really were only correcting my right eye & my left was fine. At least until I got into my 50s.
Migraines came with or without auras, usually my ocular migraines were without the headache (yay!), floaters all my life ranging from normal to heavy. Yes, Ive had an MRI or two.
Anyway, about these cataracts. They started really becoming a bother last year & rapidly progressed to me being legally blind. No vision at all in my right eye & the left is nearly as bad. You know something is up when the people treating you are calling their colleagues over, saying check this out, lol, & my dr says hes removed a lot of bad cataracts but mine are some of the worst hes seen & I'm kinda young for this. (63) Im just hoping this is the end of my right eye having it in for me & now maybe it will behave. Otoh, my migraines have nearly disappeared since the cataracts got so bad & I dont want them back either!
One time shortly after a slip and fall accident that hurt my back and irritated my neck I had what I think was an ocular migraine. A kaleidoscope sort of vision disturbance that made me think maybe that's what an acid (LSD) trip might look like. Then I wondered about stroke. No headache. Laid down and it disappeared in 20-30 minutes. Very weird.
Lol 😂😂😂 I went to nursing school in North Dakota and my first job was in Fargo. I had the same reaction about the flat when I first moved there. I'm in Florida now. Snow is not my favorite form of water 😂.
When I have the run of the house, I play my HD operas at full volume 🎶🎶🎶
If you like the movie Fargo I highly recommend the TV series. Very little of it actually takes place in Fargo but it's so good.
I have ocular migraines which I get randomly ever since late in my pregnancy which was almost 3 years ago. I figured it had something to do with preeclampsia. They're weird and annoying but thankfully painless. They're occasionally scary, like when I'm driving and a dark curtain descends over one eye, but usually those go away within a few minutes.
have you done an episode about long covid and vision changes? i would love more info.
The way I chose to have easier to clean glasses is by getting glass lenses with no coatings. Very scratch resistant compared to plastic lenses. Weight would have been an issue before cataract surgery. So glasses are progressive, no correction for distance and mild correction for near.
I also get ocular migraines. It was getting to a point where I was starting to have them weekly. I obviously can't tell any of you what medicines to take, but my doctor put me on daily verapamil and now I almost never get them. Ask your doctor if verapamil is right for you! 😀
HA, I had two of these odd staticky, colorful 'rips' in my vision a few times. thanks, csf leak
You should talk about Joel Embiid from the 76ers not being able to close his Left Eye in your next episode. Curious for your take on why that might be happening. The internet is already trying to come to conclusions about it!
I was recently diagnosed with ocular migraines. I'm pretty lucky that I only see rainbows in my peripheral vision and only one eye at a time. It does not affect me in any other way, just pretty rainbows. Just a bit borhersome if I'm trying to do something. I used to have awful weekly migraines. Those are gone and replaced by the dance of the rainbows.
I'm so gay that I actually see rainbows.
Also, a question: Is it possible for your vision to actually improve after strabismus surgery?
I had the surgery on my left eye. It was always getting more and more blurry every appointment I had (pre-surgery). About 2 years after surgery, my left eye slightly was better, another 2 years, same thing, it got slightly better. I went from a -6.50 to a -6.00, in my left eye, in 8 years.
Could you discuss amblyopia? I have this and did not find out until I was an adult. I do not have the typical issues with alignment of my bad eye or horrible, horrible vision in that eye. I just never understood at the eye doctor why neither 1 more 2 made the letters better. And how it was hard when taking my vision test for my license because the entire column on my bad eye seemingly did not appear to exist. I did not have the eyepatch as a child, as I wasn’t diagnosed then, so I guess I’m kinda screwed on that front. But it would be very interesting hearing from you about this and the importance of eye exams for children in detecting this as well as potentially serious eye disorders that could be treated as a child.
They have us spit and rinse our scuba googles to prevent fogging but like you said it's not a great idea for glasses. Wish I had known about air drying before all that spitting I've done in the past.
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do when you wear contacts out in the wild. It's not like I have a bottle of saline solution when I'm out for a run and glasses and running don't mix either.
Possible idea. What if you carried a travel sized bottle of solution in a clip-on cellphone holster?
So, regarding cleaning your glasses: you state not to use rubbing alcohol as it strips the coating. I work in the sterile IV room in a hospital pharmacy, and garbing procedure dictates we have to clean lenses with isopropyl and a low linting cloth, and clean frames with grey top bleach wipes.
What would your recommendation be for prolonging the life of my coatings, while not affecting sterile conditions?
Or, alternatively, how do surgical staff clean their glasses when scrubbing in?
Don't use your shirt? Ha, doctors hate this one weird trick. After all, the best way to buff out those scratches is with more scratches!
Man that would suck! There really needs to be some sort of clip on protection goggles for people with glasses for this sort of thing! Or maybe you could look at getting clip on sunnies... Then that would stop the glasses getting dirty, and you can scratch the clip on sunnies as much as you want! 😀
I've had ocular migraines for decades. I could go on for quite some time about them. The good news is I had my annual eye exam today and everything is pretty much the same as last year, which is a win at my age. Question: Why do those drops make me so sleepy later? And just unwell feeling in general?
How many layers are there to the cornea? What does the cornea do?
I'm asking because I may be receiving a corneal transplant.
I'm a Veteran of the Navy, and I have scar tissue on my corneas from that. Doesn't bother me now, but they say I need cataract surgery. They may give me a corneal transplant at the same time, but I'm not understanding exactly why.
Could you help me understand these issues?
I got some for the first time this year. In my case, trippy as hell.
Trippy is how I would describe mine. I think I've now had two, 15-18 years apart, and they were quite different from each other.
What would be the differential diagnosis for shorter visual occurrences (seconds or minutes in duration)?
I thought I was having a stroke the first time I experienced this. Then I struggled to find the language to accurately describe my symptoms (spoiler: it was "scintillating scotoma"). Then I had to convince my doctor that acephalgic ocular migraines are actually a thing. Now I know how to recognize the prodrome and I just carry a couple of advil gelcaps on my keychain. The frequency and intensity have stayed stable for about a decade now so I'm not stressing over it unless that chances.
Mine are sparkly jagged shapes like the outline of the gold sticker on a first place ribbon. The start out small, and get larger and larger until they get so big they enlarge past my visual field. Then they're done. No pain.
I used to have regular migraines but I figured out what caused them , so I don't get them anymore.
I started getting ocular migraines in my 40s. Mostly they looks like colored geometric shapes on the periphery of my vision, usually flickering at about 5 Hz. I describe it as looking like the control panel of a UFO. The first time it happened was pretty scary; I really could not see for about 20 minutes, then the effect diminished.
Thankfully subsequent episodes have been much milder, and I don't get the headache part. I got a head MRI which was normal.
“A shadow…a string a dot a strand a spiderweb a cloud…” You’re a poet and you don’t know it!
I'm pretty sure I have a scotoma, will it ever go away? Sometimes it's more prominent than others but it seems like it's always there
I get migraines, with mine I can sometimes see blobs of color or I can smell something that isn't actually there (like no one else can smell it, like a cleaning alcohol smell).
I also get cluster headaches that almost always form behind my right eye.
Those ones usually only last a few seconds to a minute or two at most, but they get really really intense.
I get a few of each of those a month.
I also get floaters, most of the floater r in my right eye, and only a few in my left.
My ocular migrains / migrain with aura come as me noticing im not thinking as well as I normally do, say not finding a word as fast as I think I should, ot not being able to remember something I should.
I also can notice by the fact I should be getting more information what what im looking at... yet I like... Im not getting very much information.
Its not like I cant see... it feels like I can see fine... but Im just... Im like not getting everything from what my eyes are pointing at.
Then if I dont fix what ever the problem is that is causing it it will progress into an extremely painful migrain, and if I screwed up enough numbness will start at the tip of my right hand and progress up my arm onto the right side of my lip then the other side of my lip.... and I dont know after that... I havent had it peak in severity past that.
During the severity I also lose the ability to understand what the meaning of the words Im saying mean.
When someone talks to me I can "understand" them but I basicly brute force a response through habitualization... its like Im speaking by grasping for words in the dark randomly and if its the right word Ill actually be able to grab it.... but I wont understand why its the right word because I dont understand what it means... the only reason I can determine its correct is the fact I only ever seem to be able to grab good words.
But the grabbing can end up taking more than a minute just to find a word I less commonly use.
And because im in so much pain I sometimes give up if it feels like the response isnt important.
Thankfully I can fully avoid these problems if nothing touches the back of my neck, I dont tilt my head too far up or down, and im not exposed to point sources of light, loud or irritating sounds for long enough, or look at something which is darker than the area around it for long enough.
Also that visual sensitivity grows expotentially the more perifrial the problem is.... similiar to how your more sensitivitive to contrast differences in your perifrial... that seems to result in exponential sensitivity the further the problem is from what Im pointing my eyes at.
Learning these things and a system to avoid them took a long time. Im sure many other commenters have experienced the same thing, and the pain that goes along with it.
I wear sunglasses all the time just to lower the contrast between the darkest areas of the scene and the brightest. I also have no windows in the areas I live in because of the brightness difference they cause... windows tend to be much brighter then the rest of the room.
I also dont hang out with people indoors ever because buildings have point sources of lights and windows.... outside is much better because the lighting is more uniform and there arent point sources of light and with dark enough sunglasses(that fit snuggly to the face at the edges) the contrast range remains reasonable.
I have language loss aphasia aura too. I'll swap similar words, like asking for a glass of winter instead of water. Numbers look ridiculous like I'll stare at a 9 and try to remember if they always looked like that. If I try to write it's actual dyslexia where p, q or b,d are wrong. I hate it so much.
My fav neurologist in my hospital wears a bowtie. He is in fact the best.
Why are there sometimes cracking noises when rubbing or moving the eyes?