Migraine Aura Without Headache: What Do You Need to Know?

A migraine is characterized by a throbbing pain that usually lasts for a few days. However, some people suffer from migraine aura without headache. A silent or ocular migraine or aura makes you feel all the typical symptoms except for less pain around the temples.

Even though it might sound like the headache isn’t that debilitating because there is no pain, there are many other disorienting symptoms that occur. For this reason, Patients still need to avoid triggers in order to enjoy their days peacefully, and not have to deal with any unsettling symptoms.

What is a Migraine Aura Without Headache?

An aura is not dangerous and usually involves symptoms that affect a person’s vision. It can also affect other sensations in the body and patients usually report that they suffer from numbness, tingling, troubles speaking or remembering certain words. A migraine could be accompanied by some headache pain, but some of the time patients report aura without headache pain and don’t report the classical throbbing that is usually associated with this kind of condition.

Although an ocular migraine is not typically dangerous, it usually causes problems with your ability to see. This means that patients will face difficulties reading, driving or focusing on a computer screen. The symptoms are not usually serious and don’t last for long. However, patients are more likely to feel discomfort until after the episode is over. If the patient happens to be driving, this could also come with safety complications.

Common Signs

A patient will usually start to feel cranky or moody before this kind of episode starts.

Some patients tend to feel very tired or yawn more, while others report feeling hyperactive. A stiff neck is also one of the classical symptoms and patients will usually feel tired or worn out. Some patients usually feel that they need to pee more often, while others report bowel movement problems. These symptoms usually warn you that a migraine is coming. This is what is referred to in medical terms as the prodrome phase.

Triggers

A migraine aura without headache can be triggered by a number of factors. Some patients suffer from a silent migraine because of something they ate or drank. Too much caffeine(1), nuts, alcohol and food types containing tyramine have also been recorded to trigger a silent episode.

It could also be caused by environmental triggers such as exposure to loud noises or very bright light. Some patients even experience these symptoms because of extremely hot or cold weather.

How Can These Symptoms Affect Your Life?

A typical migraine usually lasts for an hour or so. However, because migraine aura without headache is not characterized by obvious pain, patients usually feel a lot of discomfort without knowing the reason. A silent migraine might cause an upset stomach, dizziness, stuffy nose or sore jaw. Most patients also feel confused and unable to function without actually understanding the reason behind the pain.

A migraine aura is not the only type of headache that affects your vision. A retinal migraine is another serious condition that affects your eyes and vision. To clarify, an ocular migraine affects both eyes while a retinal migraine usually affects one.

Although it is not very common, the latter is usually a signal of something more serious, and usually affects people who suffer from other types of migraines too. It usually involves short episodes of blindness or loss of vision in one eye. These episodes can also be accompanied by headache pain but sometimes they are pain-free.

Treatment

There are a variety of treatment options, for migraine aura without headache, or just migraines in general. Although you need to find the exact type of headache you are experiencing in order to treat it, there are some innovative ways to treat these kinds of symptoms.

If you happen to also experience symptoms with pain, Botox for migraines is one option. However, it’s important to read up on this procedure, as it comes with certain risks and of course, costs.

Conclusion

In order to truly understanding the reasons why a migraine aura without headache can occur, it is imperative that you get to the bottom of the real migraine aura causes and the nature of your symptoms. This is because it is crucial to differentiate between these kinds of symptoms and something more serious.

In fact, there can be many different kinds of ailments that these symptoms could be indicating, so it’s important to be proactive.

In order to do this, you need to consult your doctor in order to follow the proper treatment plan that can help improve the quality of your life. This is because even though there might not be pain, there is still something going on in your body that is not ideal, so it’s important to address it.