Question:
Has anyone been diagnosed with "opthalmic migraine"? I had several episodes of this as a teen - I would get flashes of light in one of my eyes and a dark/blind spot. If I would go and lie down in the dark for half an hour, it would go away. These episodes are never followed by a headache.At that time, the Opthamologist told my parents he couldn't find anything wrong and that I seemed nervous/high strung. Who wouldn't be nervous after losing their vision for a half hour??? These episodes went away and I never had another episode of this until I was in my mid-thirties and had just had my first son. I had several of these visual problems - and they seemed to be provoked by flourescent lighting in a department store, or from catching the reflection of the sun off of the car in front of me. Luckily, I saw a sympathetic retinal specialist - who said that I most likely had opthalmic migraine, and that yes, these episodes are very frightening.... He referred me to a Optho-Neurologist who did a lot of testing...my eyes/MRI checked out fine, and she explained this phenomenon to me pretty well. I don't get the migraine headache - just the visual aura. Does anyone know of any other sites online where I can go to read about this?
Answer:
When you're diagnosed with opthalmic migraine, you're actually using a classification which is not standard. The International Headache Society has standard classifications of headache and migraine that more and more doctors are using. This is why it's often hard to find information on various so-called migraines names.
What is it?
Opthalmic, relating to the eye, usually describes the visual aura that many people get with a migraine attack. This could be seeing zig zags or geometric shapes, or strange flashing lights (more on migraine aura here). These symptoms don't always come with migraine (most of the time they don't), but they're still very common.
Sometimes these symptoms are followed by a headache. Some people may call the migraine aura part of the attack opthalmic migraine, but it's really just aura. Prodrome is the name for the early stages of migraine that last longer - up to a day or two. Aura usually only lasts a few minutes.
More commonly, the term is used to describe migraine aura without headache. This is, obviously, when you have a migraine attack with no headache - also not that unusual. This version of opthalmic migraine has been most often called silent migraine.
How do I know if I have it?
The type of aura people get, even just the visual symptoms, can be totally different from person to person. Your doctor will probably want to rule out other causes. You may be referred to an ophthalmologist (eye doctor) to rule out eye disease. Other tests may need to be taken, depending on what your symptoms are. Diagnosing migraine, especially migraine aura without headache, often involves ruling out other diseases and disorders. Once you know what you have you can get on with treatment. (Read about various symptoms falling under the term of eye migraine)
Treating opthalmic migraine
If your opthalmic migraine is actually a migraine aura with headache, there are a variety of treatments available. It partly depends on how severe the aura is, and how severe the headache and other symptoms are. You can check around this site to learn about migraine medication, herbs for migraine and headache, home remedies and much more.
More commonly, your doctor is specifically referring to migraine aura without headache. In this case, it's a question of how severe the symptoms are. In the best case scenario, the symptoms are rare and not too severe, you can get away without any medication at all. If you do feel you need medication (sometimes these symptoms can be pretty disturbing, and interfere with life considerably), there are a number of good options. You can read about them in this article, a better introduction to migraine aura without headache (or silent migraine).
