those strange visual auras that people get from migraines can actually be pretty scary
especially the first time that you experience it it might make you feel like you're losing
a portion of your vision or you might see these weird light geometric patterns kind of
like you're looking through a kaleidoscope so in this video we're going to talk about
everything you need to know about visual auras and migraines so let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, with a show that
keeps your eyes healthy and your vision clear and i do a lot of educational eye videos like
this one so consider subscribing for my future videos now let's talk about migraines with auras
now let's first talk about the actual symptoms of this visual aura and what's tricky here
is a lot of people experience or see different visual auras it totally depends on the person
of what visual aura that they're seeing now the example i have playing on the video right now is
just one example of many but usually it will start off in the center of your vision as a blurry spot
or a smudge and it will grow and sometimes morph into a c pattern or a crescent shape
and eventually that shape will disappear or it will grow and move off to the side of your vision
and disappear there and you might notice that spot in your vision might flicker or sometimes that
pattern will have these zigzag lines might be colorful it might be a black and white
might have two different patterns it totally depends on the person and that central blurry spot
can actually block out your vision you'll try and look at something or look at something small like
a number or you're trying to read and it feels like you have to kind of look off to the side
to read it because you have to get that blurry spot out of the way so it makes it tricky to
actually see what you're looking at for a little while now typically these patterns will last about
15 to 30 minutes again depending on the person sometimes it can last upwards to 60 minutes i've
even had people say that they've lasted two three hours sometimes more but the average time is 15
to 30 minutes and then some people might get a headache right after this visual aura some
people don't i've had it both ways where i've had a pretty bad headache after the visual aura
i've also had times where i had the visual aura i was expecting a headache and never got one and
usually the people that don't get a headache after this visual aura will note that they
just feel off they just feel different and that's actually exactly what happened to me
is i kind of felt different i felt like maybe i had a dull ache but i felt like my sensitivity was
just turned up a few notches i could feel my shirt more i felt like i was about to get goosebumps all
of the time but never got goosebumps so just felt different that's the best way i could describe it
and then there are some people that get headaches so bad that the only thing that they can do
is just go in to their room to the lights off make sure it's quiet and just sleep it off now usually
migraines are more common in women than in men and people that experience migraines about 15 to 20 of
them experience a visual aura hey make sure that you check out the description below i'll provide
a link to a google search of ocular migraines or visual auras where people have tried to animate or
put a picture or a drawing of what their visual aura looks like and i'm kind of curious to see
if you notice if one of those pictures might resemble what your aura looks like as well
the next question everybody wants to know is why do they have this weird aura in their vision and
unfortunately there's no definitive answer yet it's still somewhat of a mystery in the eye
world but there are a few leading theories and a few findings that correlate to what's happening
in your brain when you have a visual aura now the visual aura is actually taking place in your brain
not in your eyeballs your brain is what's causing this visual aura the leading idea to the cause of
this visual aura is something called cortical spreading depression or csd the idea with csd
is that it'll cause certain brain cells usually in the back of your brain the visual cortex
to depolarize brain cells have a polarization kind of like the earth has a north and south pole
these brain cells will depolarize and actually cause a ripple effect kind of like if you were
to drop a rock into a pond and cause these ripples these ripples will spread out across your brain
then they also found correlation within these ripples of blood flow within the ripples they'll
have increased blood flow to that section of the brain and then once the ripples move farther
they'll have decreased blood flow in that same section after the ripples are gone so between the
depolarization of csd and the blood flow issues it can cause the nerves in your brain to act weird
and make you think that you're seeing light or blurry vision or certain weird
things in your vision which causes that visual aura and it kind of makes sense
to me is where most visual auras will kind of start off in the center of your vision
starting off at a certain point in your brain it will eventually kind of grow bigger and sometimes
grow to your peripheral vision and disappear and that's exactly what happened with my most recent
one started in the center kept a full circle and that full circle just got bigger and bigger and
bigger until it disappeared from the side of my vision even with this cortical spreading
depression and this blood flow there's still theories there still isn't a definitive answer
to the cause of a visual aura or the cause of this depolarization or the blood flow there's no
actual answer why that happens in the brain now most of the time people notice that this visual
or is actually happening in both eyes because it's actually happening in the back of the brain
now there are some visual auras that you can get on just one eye called an ocular migraine and you
can kind of tell if you kind of cover your eyes back and forth and see if you can see where that
visual aura is the more common one is actually happening in the back of your brain with both eyes
now that being said the next thing that people want to know is okay what's going to
trigger my migraine what's going to trigger a visual aura with my migraines the actual list of
triggers that can cause a migraine with a visual aura is pretty exhaustive there's a huge list
genetics is one thing to consider if you have a family history of people that get migraines you
might be more prone to get migraines as well there are also environmental factors lights
strong smells like perfumes there are also some foods that can trigger migraines kind of like
cheeses chocolate some certain meats caffeine also additives that they can put in the food like msg
or artificial sweeteners also there are certain things like lack of sleep anxiety and stress
all of those can actually be your trigger for migraines sometimes hormone changes related
to age can also trigger migraines as well and one thing that tipped me off for mine is after i'd eat
chinese food i'd usually get a migraine sometimes a visual or as well and i'm pretty sure it's the
msg that's in the chinese food and so sometimes i just have to stay away from that to avoid the
trigger of my migraine so the next question is what can you do about the migraine or about the
visual aura what is the treatment first off if this is the first time that you're experiencing a
visual aura better to be safe than sorry get your eyes checked out there are a few different ocular
conditions that can cause similar symptoms kind of like floaters in your eyes can cause these weird
things in your vision that aren't necessarily a visual aura but might be a sign of something
going wrong with your eye and if you're ever experiencing any type of vision loss or weird
stuff in your vision it's just better to have it checked out to rule out any other eye conditions
there are a lot of times migraines and visual auras is a diagnosis of exclusion meaning you're
getting rid of all these other possibilities or other possible eye conditions and then you're left
with a visual aura from a migraine i'll get people in the clinic all of the time it's their first
time experiencing this weird visual aura they're scared that they lost their vision they'll come in
usually by the time that they come into the clinic the symptoms are gone but they feel weird and
we'll usually look at the eyeballs do a dilation look at the periphery of the eyes and it'll be
fine and usually that means that it's actually a visual aura with a migraine that's happening
in the brain now i actually had a migraine with a visual aura happen to me while i was working
and seeing patients and right in between patients i took pictures of my eyes just to see if there's
anything weird with the actual structure of my retina or my blood vessels to see if there's
anything different and my eyes were actually fine looked perfectly normal compared to my previous
pictures so i couldn't see anything weird so it's obviously happening in my brain if you can figure
out the trigger to your migraine you want to try and avoid that trigger if you can like i just
showed you in this video i just ate chinese food so i'm hoping i don't get a migraine now a lot of
times when people get this visual aura it's a precursor or a sign that a headache is coming
sometimes you'll get the aura first and then 15 or 30 minutes later you'll get the headache and so
when people see this visual aura it tells them hey it's time to take some medication either excedrin
or ibuprofen to get control of the headache quicker and faster before it really hits them
hard now if you're experiencing the migraine with visual aura more frequently or maybe the headache
is actually getting worse you definitely want to go into your primary care provider or your
neurologist so they can actually do a deep dive more detective work of what might be causing this
migraine because there are more serious conditions like tumors or masses in your brain you know some
things that might be scarier that you need to make sure that you don't have there are also
certain medications that are prescribed that can help with migraines like topomax for one example
this is where you'll talk with your primary care provider or your neurologist figuring out the best
treatment for your migraines and like i mentioned before sometimes the headaches are so bad
that the treatment is just to go into a quiet room lights off no noise go to sleep and sleep it off
i'm actually curious to hear from you on this one leave a comment below if you've experienced
migraines with visual auras i'm curious to hear what your visual aura looks like the range is
all across the board i've heard some people where almost a whole center part of their
vision is blacked or grayed out i've heard that their whole vision is blurry a section of their
vision is blurry so i'm kind of curious to see what you experience hey thanks for watching that
whole video make sure you hit that like button i'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, focusing on you and
your eyes stay focused check out my other videos right there and i'll see you in the next video