Migraine with aura more frequent
Hi everyone! I am a 32 years old woman and have migraine with and without visual aura since 17.
I usually have auras once a year, but I've also been almost 3 years without them twice in my life.
Almost 3 months ago, I started having more episodes of migraine with aura, I think I've had in this 3 months more auras than my entire life. I have to say that this frequent episodes started two days after stop to taking excitalopram. ( I have been taking a low dose and stop it because we where planing to have a baby).
Usually get them once a week or even every five days. I have seen two neurologist , who specializes in migraines , and one of them sent me to do an MRI of the brain and blood vessels and everything was normal, says that probably is electric because I had a year with stress and it seems I have a small hormonal imbalance that made me have irregular periods. He give Lamotigrine to take but I don't see changes in the frequency.
As it is the first time in my life that my frequency of auras has changed, I wonder if anyone else experienced and what you have done to decrease the frequency. I feel so sad to be like this, we were planing to have a baby 3 months ago and now I find myself with trial and error of medications to see if I can get my normal life again.
Non of this two neurologist told me anything, but this episodes start two days after stop the excitalopram, I will ask to the professionals if it could be a relation with it.
I will appreciate if you can give me some feedback about your migraines with aura, did you have them more frequent time to time?
Hi Ayali22,
Apologies for the delay in response and thank you for your post. We are happy to hear from you. So sorry to hear that you are experiencing an increase in migraine with aura. It seems that it has disrupted your life a bit, which I am sure can be frustrating and sad. I am happy to hear that you have been seeing migraine specialists. We always suggest, here at Migraine.com, to see your doctor when new symptoms crop up or increase in frequency. While I do feel community members will be able to chime with their information which you may find helpful, I thought you would find the following articles helpful - https://migraine.com/?s=aura&submit=Go, https://migraine.com/migraine-causes-and-triggers/. The links connect you to a number of articles discussing migraine with aura, and the second link discusses triggers, as perhaps you are experiencing differing triggers which impact your migraine frequency. I hope you find this helpful. If you have any additional questions please do not hesitate to reach out. We love hearing from you.
Warmly,
Meaghan (Migraine.com Team)
I doubt this is helpful but I have had a lot of migraine changes in my life. I am now 64 and they did not get bad until I was 63. I went from "classic migraine" when I was in my 30s-50s--occasional and sometimes lasting for a month but then stopping--to chronic migraine--neurologist called it transformed migraine, to migraine with aura--aura was sparkles in peripheral vision that sometimes were followed by headache and sometimes not, (my old auras--the zig zags that fill the vision are not with me any longer) I thought recently I had a good handle on them.
Taking small dose depakote in addition to the nortriptyline and atenolol I had taken and had seemed to work for past few years. Also take migrelief, COQ10, extra B12 and other B vitamns,huge wear migraine glasses, and have noticed I respond a lot of the time to changes in barometric pressure. I also walk briskly or go to the gym at least 5 days a week for 45-60 minutes.
I have had to avoid looking into headlights at night, meeting people's eyes in a conversaion because I have to look up toward artificial light, leaving people's houses who have been burning candles, kicking prospective clients out of my office if they are wearing perfume.
Just this week I thought I was handling the headaches OK and could try to re-connect with friends (I have done nothing socially for a year--I know I am viewed almost universally as a hermit now), when I hit a huge 4 day (so far) migraine. I also get botox and eat very little processed food, no additives, follow all the dietary NOs. The meds have packed on 8 pounds despite the exercise and limited diet.
I am very frustrated right now, but when I look at my migraine diary, I have also been here before and got better--although it feels like a return to the beginning of chronic migraine. Not sure why I wrote and not trying to one-up you on aura but there are plenty of days where you should be able to function close to normally.
