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Log in with Yahoo!What is retinal migraine?
Retinal migraine is a term used to describe a type of migraine where symptoms affect eyesight. In contrast to other migraines types that affect general eyesight in both eyes, a retinal migraine typically occurs in a single eye. The underlying cause of retinal migraine remains largely unknown. A possible cause discovered upon examining people with active retinal migraine is that some individuals were having a spasm of the blood supply to the retina as their migraine occurred.
How frequently does retinal migraine occur?
While thought to occur only rarely, the true frequency of retinal migraine is really unknown. This may be due to the fact that people who experience this type of migraine might not typically associate their symptoms with a migraine and therefore never make the connection through a formal discussion with their physician. Retinal migraine is most common in women in younger women of childbearing years who have a history of migraine with aura. Generally a diagnosis of retinal migraine is made after other causes are ruled out including other non-migraine related eye disorders.
What are the symptoms of retinal migraine?
- Episodes of fully reversible positive and/or negative visual disturbances within one eye associated with migraine headache.
- Visual changes including flashing rays of light, zigzag lightning patterns or perceptions of bright colored streaks, halos or diagonal lines.
- Visual losses include blurring, blank areas, black dots or spots in the field of vision, causing partial or complete blindness.
- Visual impairment, such as the coming together of spots and “tunnel vision” (not being able to see items in the periphery of one’s visual field), are less common.
- The visual disturbance often occurs on the same side of the migraine headache and may precede, accompany, or rarely, follow it.
How long do the episodes last and is the vision impairment reversible?
- The duration of the visual symptoms may be as short a few seconds but usually lasts many minutes to 1 hour.
- Prolonged but fully reversible visual loss of one eye may rarely occur, sometimes lasting hours, days, or even, weeks.
- Prolonged and permanent visual loss in a single eye appears to occur more commonly in patients with retinal migraine than in cases of simple prolonged typical aura in those with conventional migraine. This makes retinal migraine a potentially more serious condition than migrane with conventional visual aura.
The International Headache Society’s definition of retinal migraine includes:
- At least 2 attacks fulfilling criteria B and C
- Fully reversible monocular positive and/or negative visual phenomena (eg, scintillations, scotomata or blindness) confirmed by examination during an attack or (after proper instruction) by the patient’s drawing of a monocular field defect during an attack
- Headache fulfilling criteria B-D for 1.1 Migraine without aura begins during the visual symptoms or follows them within 60 minutes
- Normal ophthalmological examination between attacks
- Not attributed to another disorder
Migraine prevention treatment for retinal migraine?
Although the use of migraine prevention treatment for retinal migraine has not been sufficiently studied, the use of medications to prevent migraine might be warranted according several schools of medical thought. This is due to the fact that people with retinal migraine have a greater chance of permanent vision loss than people with other forms of traditional migraine. Therapy of the acute attack of retinal migraine should probably not include triptans or ergots because of these medications work by constricting blood vessels. Preventative medications that have been tried and have been reported to offer possible benefit include calcium-channel blockers such as verapamil and nifedipine, beta blockers such as metoprolol tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline and some anticonvulsants like topirimate or divalproex . Although no guidelines are available, low-dose daily aspirin therapy is well tolerated and has been reported anecdotally to be effective.
Written by: Lisa Erwin / Reviewed by: John-Claude Krusz, PhD, MD | Last review date: November 2010. Click the References Link below for a complete list of references.
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There are over 1,000 articles and stories on Migraine.com - but we have the tools you need to find the information most relevant to you.IHS definition -- Retinal migraine Cephalalgia Grosberg 2006
Permanent monocular blindness and ocular migraine J Royal Society of Medicine Pandit 1997
Disturbances in ocular JNNP 1990
"I had my first migraine when I was 12. I thought I was going blind, the spots in my vision all grouped together and everything went black. The pain was intense and felt like my head would crack open above my right eye." 
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