Migraines are more than bad headaches
This Week In The HSI Healthier Talk Community
A migraine is not just a bad headache. Far from it.
In several e-Alerts and HSI Members Alerts we’ve examined aspects of migraines that reveal just how complex this health condition can be. This is illustrated again in a thread titled “Shattered Vision” that appears in the Vision forum of the HSI Healthier Talk community. The conversation in this thread (edited for length) also shows just how effective the forums can be, with members helping other members find their way through challenging health problems.
An HSI member who goes by “modernexotic” starts things off, saying she’d like to make contact with anyone who suffers from attacks of shattered vision. She describes the attacks as being similar to looking through a kaleidoscope; for 15 to 30 minutes everything is “shattered and distorted.”
Ronric “I have the same symptoms. It is hard to describe. It’s like
dancing colors shaped like amateur drawings of lightning around the front field of vision. Lasts 20 to 30 minutes. Closing one eye at a time does not change the pattern of these dancing images, as they are there with eyes open or closed. I think kaleidoscope too when they come. It happens about once every week or two. Any ideas?”
Cate: “The type of vision changes you are describing sounds like a migraine aura. The aura usually precedes the head pain and its possible to have the aura without pain. I believe they are called silent migraines.”
Ronric “Thanks for the suggestion that this could be a ‘visual
migraine’. However, there is no pain involved either during or after the display of colorful designs that are in the vision field. In fact I have very few headaches of any kind. When they slowly fade away from view, I know that I’m good for a few days of clear vision.”
Leppert: “Ronrico, I’ve never had a migraine in my life. When I
researched the ‘visual migraine’ it said that those who had migraines when younger often got the visual variety as they hit middle age. Pain doesn’t always come with.
“Mine was from a head trauma (a fall down 26 steps) and did not come with pain, only the visual aberrations. When several years later I drank several cups of coffee one week (celebrating a neighbor’s new espresso machine) and the ‘visual migraines’ returned, my DR had a fit. Coffee is a known antidote for homeopathic remedies but it had been so long I didn’t realize that the remedy was still working in my body.
“One week back on my remedy and my vision was fine again. It would be worth a visit to a Homeopathic physician to explore the possibility of a cure. My DR has had success with the regular variety of migraine too. My eye DR was absolutely amazed with my recovery.”
Ronric “Leppert and Cates, Thank you both for your opinions that my problem is visual migraine. I of course connected migraine with headaches and thought this can’t be my case because there is no pain at all, and besides the ‘light show’ goes away in a matter of minutes. I went and Googled ‘visual migraine’ and several sites showed artist’s renditions of it and they were very similar to the things I see when it occurs. Again many thanks.”
Other topics being discussed this week in the Healthier Talk community forums include:
- Stomach problems: Acid reflux
- Arthritis: Deer velvet
- Fibromyalgia: Things I have learned by trial and error
- Dr. Wright’s Nutrition and Healing: Cell therapy
- Hormones: Peri-menopause
- Humor: Brief history of medicine
