Ocular Migraine Aura: What Is It?

An aura is the sensory-vision disturbances some migraine sufferers experience before their attacks. The exact cause of ocular migraine aura is unknown. However, some say it’s due to the part of your brain that receives signals from your senses being affected by an electrical current or wave.

This kind of affliction can cause pain and sensitivity in the eyes. It’s also common for a disturbance to occur before this type of headache. Aura tends to happen around an hour before the pain hits, allowing those who experience these regularly to notice common trends and symptoms. Since each body is different, people experience these kinds of symptoms differently.

Ocular Migraine Aura: Effects

Aura can affect all the senses, but it most commonly affects vision. Those who suffer from intense headaches that affect the eyes will likely notice disturbances in their vision due to this. However, thankfully there is treatment available that can help with this kind of disorder.

Some of the visual impairments that this experience causes are blind spots, seeing flashing lights, seeing zigzag patterns, and even partial or full vision loss. The hallucinations of seeing spots or patterns in your vision can be quite scary for those experiencing it for the first time.

After the first time, it’s best to see your doctor so he can rule out more serious ailments. This is because these kinds of symptoms are also associated with having a stroke, which is life-threatening, while these kinds of headaches usually are not.

Other Symptoms

Other symptoms of ocular migraine aura that are less likely to occur include: auditory hallucinations (hearing buzzing or trembling sounds; hearing sounds that aren’t happening in reality), smelling and tasting things that you haven’t eaten or had access to and even losing feeling in your body. Some sufferers noted their face tingling or going numb, and their skin becoming extra sensitive. These symptoms are horrific, and like we mentioned above, they can be confused with a stroke.

As we also mentioned above, it can be quite scary to experience these kinds of symptoms for the first time and to experience this kind of ailment, without knowing what is going on. The loss of certain senses and then the pain around your eyes can even trigger a panic attack or anxiety attack(1) in some. This is because the symptoms feel so disorientating that it can be challenging to continue every day activities, or be able to easily seek treatment on your own.

In this case, it is important to consult a medical professional. This is so that they can explain to you what is going on, and treat you for anything urgent if necessary.

If you do actually have this disorder, once you visit a doctor and they confirm that you are a victim of ocular migraine aura, you can start to notice patterns in your symptoms. As you become used to the types of sensations that this kind of disturbance creates you will be able to predict an oncoming severe headache and do whatever preventative treatment that works for you.

Track Your Headaches For Relief

Although ocular migraine aura is generally passed down in families and is due to genetics, there are ways to decrease the frequency and severity of this ailment.

Firstly, one of the things you can do is to make a point of noticing when you get intense headaches, and when you get an aura. Sometimes one doesn’t cause the other, but something in your lifestyle or environment could be influencing them. For example, avoid triggers that could initiate these kinds of symptoms include: flashing lights, exposure to direct sunlight, or tensing your eye muscles to read something far away.

One of the easiest ways to learn exactly what triggers affect you is to keep track of the details of your pain and symptoms. This includes taking notes of everything about them. For example, their length, their severity, and all of the potential factors that could have caused it to happen. The more information you can gather, the easier it will be to get a diagnosis from a doctor.

Conclusion

The condition discussed in this article is a common type of a headache that can cause pain and stress on the sufferer. If this kind of ailment occurs, the sufferer should check in with a doctor who can fully diagnose the condition and then recommend appropriate treatment.

In addition to recommending that you keep a diary of symptoms to be able to get a proper diagnosis, the doctor will also help you create a diary to help learn about your own personal triggers and how to avoid them in the future.

Once you start to do this, you can start to figure out ways to avoid the initial disturbance and headache altogether, in conjunction with various types of treatments, which can include everything from pharmaceuticals and injections to natural remedies.

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