Sandy,

We had a similiar experience that turned out to be a little scary. DH has had some strange light spots and floaters in his vision that were diagnosed in the past as the auras precluding a migraine. Yet he has no history of migraines.

Three years back He had a weird white spot, lots of floaters and turns out he had developed retinal tears. We have a friend who is an optomolgist so he got emergency laser surgery that day. Scary. I know your case may be different but the similarities are kind of unsettling to me. Perhaps a second opinion if it does not improve for you?

Lisa

I've had migraines since 1995. They started off as the ~typical~ three day events of horrible pain, nausea, light bothers me and curl up in a dark corner somewhere. Over time it progressed to DAILY severe pain +/- the nausea.

Don't know how many times I've gone to the hospital because of the pain or how many medications I've been on to keep things under control.

It wasn't until this year I had the aura occur which was or was not followed by the pain. Last month I had my first, and hopefully last, ocular migraine. My eyesight was very blurry. I could not focus enough to read. I had to stop doing surgeries for those three days of symptoms.
The vision would improve somewhat in the afternoon and evening but was horrible in the mornings!

There was no headache during this event. I think I rather have the headache instead of blurry vision. A thousand years ago I was working for a veterinarian when he experienced his first ocular migraine. He was rushed to the emergency room ... I remember his symptoms were like the ones I was experiencing so I kinda-sorta knew what I was experiencing at that point.

Strangely enough ... a few days later I was having lunch with a client and she told me that she had her first ocular migraine two days before I had mine! Hers lasted for three days as well. She too went to the emergency room, had all the scans .... went to her regular physician and finally to the Ophthalmologist.

The Ophthalmologist knew immediately what was her problem and even showed her a video explaining the problem. He was sorry she had gone through all the testing because none of the other physicians ever heard of the problem!

Glad your beloved is okee-dokee, Lisa.

Lisa, if your Doctor hasn't tried to find out what caused the damage to your DH's eye you might want to ask a few questions. I wound up with a scar on the outer edge of the retina that scared me silly when I discovered I couldn't see out of a portion of one eye. It turned out it was from very high blood pressure and no one had noticed. It has gone away after 40 years but it could have been worse if I hadn't gone on a special diet for a while. Sandy

I have had "sinus headaches" since I was a teen. I have had innumerable suspected sinus infections treated with antibiotics, and lo and behold, after two days of the antibiotics the headache suddenly disappeared. Then, one day - I think in my forties? - I had funny specks in my eye on my way to a new ENT. He insisted I didn't have a sinus infection and for the spots I should go to an eye doctor. I got an eye appointment a few days after, and told the opthalmologist. He immediately diagnosed it as a migraine. He showed me a picture of the optic nerve, and the pattern in my eye looked identical to the cross section of the nerve. In my eye it used to look like a doughnut shape, fading to a snowflake-like shape, thicken to a doughnut, fade to the snowflake, etc. At some times I've also had trails of little blinking triangles, which showed up more before the headache, the doughnut/snowflake during the headache.

Mine were 48 hours long, every two weeks. We eventually settled on me taking a daily beta blocker (or was it a calcium blocker), it took the edge of the pain very nicely and made me stay functional. I forget the name though. Then some specific painkiller if it was still very painful... which made me want to take corners veeerrry slowly...
Now, what with menopause etc, no more headaches for me. Sometimes I think I have a little bit of the pattern in my eye, but not much and not for long, and no pain. I'm lucky. I hope they find a good way for you to help these disturbances along!
You too, Chicka!

:) Mary

*wondering how many migraines we treated with antibiotics...*

:) Mary

Thanks for your concern. :) DH has astigmatism (sp?) and his eyeballs are more football shaped then round. People with this problem can suddenly develop these retinal tears-and if not fixed soon enough can go blind. Very scary and we never know if and when it may happen again.

I am glad your Migraine pain is gone. And really hope that you C3D and Mary never get another one again.

Lisa

I had daily migraines from the time I was a small child. I learned to live with them. Usually I could continue on with life, only occassionaly having to blacken the windows, put cotton in my ears and writhe on the bed for a few days.

I was about 28 and working as an accountant when I suddenly had blurry vision every day at about 2:30 pm. I was still having the painful kind too.

After a few weeks I went to the Dr and he told me I was having cluster migraines. He gave me some meds that would help for a couple of weeks then all the pain would come back and he'd switch to another med. The final straw was when I was driving to work (luckily I had a jeep and lived in the country) and looked at the sun and it had beautiful rainbows around it and I just drove toward it. I "came to" way off in a field, still driving toward the beautiful sun.

I carefully got back on the road and continued on to work. I called the Dr and told him what happened and that I would rather have the migraines than experience all I'd been through with the meds.

He said, "You know there is a government grant for something new called bio-feedback training and a local nurse practicioner is doing it here in Vt. I don't know anything about it, but I'm going to refer you."

That was the end of my migraines. All kinds. For the first time in my life I my head was pain free.

I guess it's like the silent migraines you talk about. They are still happening, but my body automatically goes into the bio-feedback routine all by itself after all these years (I'm 62 now). Sometimes I'm aware of the bio-feedback kicking in.

If I consciously look for the migraine I can find it and sort of feel it, but no horrid pain. I have a bad headache about once or twice a year, but they don't act like the migraines I used to have. I guess they are just plain old headaches.

I never thought of having an EEG. It would be interesting to see what it shows.

Anne

I've heard that women who have them their entire lives tend to get rid of them in menopause. But unfortunately, if women develop them during menopause, they usually keep them.
I get mine about every 6 months now, which tells me my ovaries are still sputtering along, even though I haven't had a period in about 4 years.
My OB/GYN said that our hormones can still fluctuate 10 years after our periods stop. Isn't that great news! NOT!
Beta blockers can help reduce their occurence.
Sometimes they can be triggered by certain foods.....like MSG, too much salt, chocolate, caffeine, etc. Maybe you could keep a diary of what you had to eat for 24 hours before you get them, and you could learn to avoid them that way.
Good luck with them Sandy.

OMG. I ran into a Dr sort of like that too!!! Matter of fact, now that I think of it, two like that. hahaha

I don't even know if bio-feedback training is still done but it sure worked for me. You also could buy a home monitor for training. Maybe one is still available somewhere.

Good luck!
Anne