Ocular migraine???

Hi chrissybloo,

I've not had this happen, but imagine it would be scary. I have been triggered by certain smells in the big box stores, so I try and avoid them especially during spring and summer. I think it's the fertilizer odor that gets me every time.

I wonder if keeping a detailed migraine diary would be helpful to identify migraine attack patterns and triggers? If we can identify and avoid the migraine attack triggers we can, we may be able to reduce our migraine attack frequency and severity.

'Ocular' migraine is used as a descriptive term, not a diagnostic one. Migraine with aura may be what you are experiencing and you can read more about that here; https://migraine.com/migraine-types/migraine-with-aura/.

I hope this helps,
Nancy

Hello,
I have been getting what my dr called ocular migraines for the past two months. My vision does not get totally lost, just distorted with the shimmery, growing 'C'. It comes on gradually so I have learned to recognize it and find somewhere to wait it out since it lasts 20 - 25 minutes. Maybe if you learn to recognize the beginning symptoms you will begin to feel more confident in going out. I am still afraid of it happening when driving but know to just find a safe place to pull over. It happened once while I was in a doctors appointment with my daughter. I was so paranoid that I was looking at the doctor crosseyed since I could only see half of her. When I was having another episode I asked my husband if I was looking at him in an odd way and he assured me I looked fine so now I know I don't appear any different to people when I am having one so that helps.

I don't know if this is what you mean, but many years ago, I had a passing episode of central vision blindness in my right eye - like a hole was punched in the center of my visual field. After a few minutes, it passed.

I was terrified, naturally, and saw an opthmalogist and then a cardiologist (to see if it had been a blood clot). The diagnosis was a migraine in the blood vessel feeding my ocular nerve. Happily the spasm stopped quickly enough that there was no permanent damage to my vision.

I don't know if this diagnosis was actually correct or if you are referring to something similar or not, but I thought I'd share my experience.

This happened to me in 1990, by the way, and never occurred again - though I get plenty of the usual type of migraines (too many).