Ocular Migraine

Oy. I used to have these, but about six years ago they miraculously stopped. Now they've returned. With a vengeance. I used to wonder what my trigger was.  I suppose I'll have to concede it's stress. I haven't changed my eating habits since I've come to live with my parents. The only change is moving in with my parents. I had one this morning and am now having another one. This is tiresome.

They're coming 2-3 times a day this last week. I even woke up to one the other day.  Thank TPTB at least they're just ocular and not full-blown painful migraines.  They are disconcerting and cause me to feel slightly nauseous and off, but, knock on wood, they don't lay me out.

If you've never had one and wonder what I'm talking about, here's a link to a google search for ocular migraine images.  This page has good animated pics that show the disconcerting movement. Here's another one of the scintillating scotoma, which is the name for what some see.

I wish I had found the migraine-aura.org website 20 years ago.  It would have saved me years of misery. There was a time, particularly when my son was about a year old that I had the sensory symptoms frequently called "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome." This page holds posts from people that so very accurately describe the symptoms.

I had the macrosomatognosia symptom, or feeling very tall; I also had one a friend described as feeling as if you're walking beside yourself. The last symptom I suffered was feeling as if I was walking down a tunnel. I thought I was going nuts. They're difficult to describe, and back then when you tried to describe them to your local general practioner, the ones I had just shrugged and said, "Oh, you're just anxious." Well, duh. If they'd only said, "Oh, you're having an aural/ocular/visual migraine, and those aren't uncommon at all," why, I might have been less, um, anxious.