Frequent migraine aura with little or no headache
Hi there, I’m 49 years old and started having migraines when I was 15 years old. I’ve always gotten migraine with visual aura, sensory auras and in my teens and early twenties severe head pain. As I got older my migraines became a lot less frequent and eventually changed to visual auras with mild to moderate headache and some nausea and other sensory aura symptoms. For many years until just recently they had become very infrequent. Sometimes one every couple months and a few times I could go a year or more. But like I said just recently the flood gates have opened and I’ve started having clusters of migraine auras with mild or moderate migraine pain after words. I’ve had 2 cluster attacks so far where I can have visual aura anywhere from once an hour to once every eight hours. It tends to last a few days and then slows down. Since this has started about a month ago the longest I’ve gone between migraine aura was ten days.
The part of the story is that I have an identical twin brother and about a year before me he started having episodes like me just not quite as frequent but otherwise extremely similar. I have also had an appointment with my gp and because of my history and my twin brothers history he is not to concerned about more immediate issues that could be more dangerous. I also see a neurologist that I’ve seen because I have had an epilepsy diagnosis since 2013. I’ve definitely talked with him about my migraine history but because of it being so episodic for many years it hasn’t been a major topic. But I do have an appointment with him in 4 days where he will be hearing about this very new and acute problem with my migraines.
So that’s about it regarding my migraine history and what’s going on right now. My biggest question for the community is has anyone ever dealt with sudden onset of migraine aura clusters like I’ve talked about? I would love to hear from anyone with insight or advice.
I just joined yesterday and brought this up in the hows your day going. It was recommended to me by people in admend that I might find a more fruitful discussion here in the forum section. So here I am.
Thank you all for taking the time to read this and I wish all of you the most migraine free days possible.
Hi there. First- welcome to our community! So glad you found us and I hope that you'll find some folks here that will share stories that will resonate with yours.
I'm really glad to hear you'll be seeing a doctor in just a few days. That would be the first thing we would recommend - whenever there is a shift or change in migraine symptoms.
I had a question/need for clarification. Have you been diagnosed with Cluster Headache? You used the word cluster a couple of times but you may've meant it literally as that you'd had several incidents close together of experiencing migraine aura.
Cluster Headache, you may know, is a specific kind of migraine attack: https://migraine.com/clinical/symptoms-cluster-headache.
I'd be interested in understanding if you are experiencing Cluster Headache with aura or numerous experiences with migraine attacks that include aura. If it is the latter- here are a couple of resources we have that might be of interest to you:
We'll be interested to hear what you learn at your appointment this coming week. As I said, we're so glad you've found us. I hope you'll come to see that we are in this with you and will be here for you on this journey. Most of us here are also living with migraine and therefore have deep compassion for what you are navigating. Keep in touch. We are thinking of you.
Warmly- Holly -migraine.com team.Hi there Holly,
Thank you for welcoming me to the community. To be clear I did not mean cluster headaches. What I meant was migraine with aura. They seem to be the type of migraines I have gotten for many years now. Where I get visual and than sensory auras with little to moderate headache. The only critical difference is starting at the end of August the frequency has become intense. The worst days which I’ve had a few I might get 4 to 6 a day. At other times this month I only got 3 in a week and than I went ten days without one. But than another wave started up again where I was getting 4 to 6 a day for a few days. For the last two days I’ve only had three so I’m hoping it’s starting to slow down again. We shall see.
I couldn’t see any links you sent so not sure what’s going on with that. But I am very thankful to of found this site and I plan to let the community know what’s going on in coming days.
Thank you once again for your care and concern.
Gabriel
Hi Gabriel. Glad you made it over here. If Holly is anything like me when she posts here, she likely wrote her post and forgot to paste the links in when she was finished! 😀 We have SO many articles here about aura, I'm not even going to try to guess what she had in mind for you. Is there anything specific you're curious about right now? As an example, we've had people share their own aura stories and we have some articles about the different kinds of auras and how they're treated. -Melissa, migraine.com team Also- sorry the links didn't post- I had two experiences that day where parts of my messages disappeared! ugh- I can't quite remember what I found for you the other day- but it was two examples of people, like you, who had migraine with low or no head pain plus aura: https://migraine.com/forums/silent-migraine-aura-like-brain-squeezing. And: https://migraine.com/migraine-aura/migraine-aura-without-pain. And: https://migraine.com/migraine-aura/migraine-aura-without-pain. Lastly: https://migraine.com/forums/aura-without-headache. Hope these are somewhat helpful in at least letting you see you're not alone and perhaps in orienting you to some ideas/ approaches. There are more resources on the topic here that you can skim: https://migraine.com/search?s=aura%20no%20pain. Warmly- Holly -migraine.com team.
Hi Melissa,
Thanks for writing back. I guess the big things I’m trying to find out would be any information on migraine aura without headache where the frequency suddenly increases. Also I’m very interested especially if there were people who went through it what treatments people have done as preventative for migraine with aura. Love to hear anything about some of the new treatments that have come out in the last few years. I finally have my appointment with my neurologist tomorrow afternoon so hopefully that starts me down a good path.
Thanks again for your concern.- Hi there- I'm not sure if we've caught you in time before you went to your appointment. But if so, I'd suggest you ask your doctor about the newer class of drugs called CGRPs: https://migraine.com/cgrp-new-direction-migraine-treatment. I'll stop there just in case this gets to you in time. If we didn't get this to you before your appointment, please let us know how it went. Thinking of you- Holly (migraine.com team).
Thank you Holly,
I read through all the articles today. It does help me in getting prepared for what might come.
Thanks again for all the help and support I will stay in touch.Sounds good. Hoping your appointment went well today. Please reach out if you have any questions or need for support. We are here for you and in this with you. Warmly- Holly -migraine.com team.
