Have you ever had a really long migraine aura?

[Romann]

I get occasional migraine with aura that usually lasts 30-40 minutes at the onset. Yesterday I had an aura, but it took longer than usual to spread to the sides, and as it was fading it kicked off again in the middle. It was about 1.5-2 hours before the jaggedy silver bit had gone, and I was still left with a shimmery, sort of wavy patch in the middle for hours after and I'm still a bit disoriented the next day. I didn't get much of a headache at all: slight pressure at the temples and slight nausea.

I had more standard (for me) migraine 2 days earlier: 30 min aura followed by horrible headache and nausea for a few hours. It's not unprecedented for me to have them 2x in a week, but the aura experience was really unusual and really horrible. Has anyone else experienced these kind of changes?

Yes, I experienced it, and I'll just try to rest or sleep, because I think it might disappear and I will feel better if I wake up, but it doesn't work.

I've only had three migraines in my life: one with speech confusion, one with terrible nausea and one with a two hour aura in a brand new job where I felt I had to keep on working. Horrible. So yes, from my experience they can change quite a bit, but it's always worth getting things checked out if this is new for you.

Thanks for replies - you have all my hugest sympathies, it's so awful. I am going to go to GP for a chat about it.

I had another one with full aura yesterday! I'm really worried now

Yep had some really weird ones. Went blind for about an hour once - that scared the bejeesus out of me. What age are you? Thinking hormones here as that's what causes mine. Most of my worst aura experiences were before I started getting the actual migraines (as in headache part) and rarely have aura now ... they are a strange thing for sure. Just getting rid of one now (3rd day) so you have my sympathy!

Go get some good drugs .. they can be very helpful.

Minutes? You lucky thing! My aura lasts on average 6 days.

Worst one lasted 2 weeks. It was horrible.

You have an aura for 6 days? Everything I have read says it's very very unusual to have an aura for longer than 40 minutes. Aura that lasts more than an hour can be a symptom of migraineous infarction. Of course the whole migraine can go on for days.

Do you really lose your vision for several days?

Ally I think mine are hormonal too. I find triptans quite helpful.

thats good romann as it means there is an end to them (in sight for me) yay!

Yes Romann, I do. I have since my first period at 12. They are very infrequent these days though. I'm drugged up to my eyeballs to manage them.

6 hours used to be common. But once I did go 3 days-not constant, but whenever I got out of bed for any length of time, it came back pretty quickly.

I once had 48 hours of visual aura and aphasia (language difficulties, which earned me several nights in hospital) before the actual migraine started, which then took a fortnight to disappear completely!

That was a couple of years ago. I've had odd migraines since then but no more auras until about a month ago, when I had another 2-day aura, which started with nerve pain in my forearm, before eventually moving on to the visual stuff and then the pain!

The neurologist warned me that whilst migraines tend follow a similar pattern each time, the aura can vary greatly from one episode to the next!

Good lord, what a terrifying thought!

GP said to keep a diary (of migraines, poss triggers, but also my increasingly erratic menstrual cycle, night sweats, PMT, and suchlike cheerful signs of being in my 40s ) and if the migraine becomes a debilitating pattern she would refer me to a hormone specialist.