Visual disturbance/migraine(?)

[2kidsintow]

I don't get migraines, although my Mum once went through a phase of suffering from them. When I had my DD1 (now 11) I had an horrendous week of them. One after another for a week, getting slightly less intense each time. I put it down to hormones.

Every now and again (6 months to a year or so) I get a short spell where I have visual disturbances. It starts like the aftereffect of looking at a lightbulb, then grows and spreads. I can't see very well and what I can see is over bright. I have trouble focusing and reading as a lot of my sight is interrupted by tv-interference style flashy zig zag lines.

When they were every now and again I didn't worry about it, but today I had my second one in a matter of weeks. They are short lived and annoying. I'm wondering how frequently they have to occur to be a concern.

(Selfishly I am aware that one of the first things that would happen if I went to a GP would be to be taken off the pill- which would be an inconvenience to say the least)

I've never really noticed one eye in particular over the other, so mine must affect both at once. I have stood there looking like an idiot covering one eye, then the other and can't see any difference in the vision between my eyes.

Yes to now disliking bright lights and I do worry in the summer now. I try to remember to wear my (prescription) sunglasses as I worry in the summer whenever I've been somewhere that has had a lot of glare and end up looking and trying to see if the glare is fading or whether the blind spot is the start of my migraine. I don't know whether these trigger it, but there was definitely a reflection from a windscreen when I was out yesterday that happened and was then followed straight away by the migraine.

When they've only happened every several months or so I've not worried about them, if I get another one then I will go to the GP.

My first ever one I'm sure was provoked by having had the sun getting into my eyes for too long. That was the weirdest one, because I was so convinced it must be a sunspot, and then started to get confused, wondering whether I'd always only been able to see half a person's nose on their face at a time, or whether I ought to be seeing two nostrils... and then wondering why I could only see half of each word written down, unless I leaned right over to one side and tried to visualise the whole word from a funny angle. The migraines subsequent to that one (which have never been followed by a headache) have been more obviously the blind spot getting bigger and then starting to scintillate, and possibly transparent shapes moving up and down in front of my vision (but not necessarily) and then a funny fuzzy sensation and the scintillation sparkling away in the corner of my vision on one side before it disappears. I've had them on and off since I was 17, but often have several years between them. When I get them close together, they are definitely hormonally provoked (eg during my pregnancies, when my period would otherwise have been due). Otherwise, I'm usually a bit tired and run down or recently got up early and did something vigorous with possibly low blood sugar, or can remember having had a few days preceding it feeling a little bit odd and tired, or having a mildly funny feeling stomach - ie there is often some kind of build up to notice, but only in retrospect! I think migraine auras without migraine are actually more common in older people who have had classic migraines in their youth, but in general they are more common the older you get - so maybe it's just old age creeping up on you!...

Progesterone only pill is fine with migraines. But combined pill is a stroke risk if you get migraines so worth changing.