Ocular Migraine Symptoms

Migraine headache is best defined, to many people, as an especially huge beast of a headache. They fail to realize that migraine comes in various forms. For the most part, few of us have heard of an ocular migraine.

Ocular migraine manifests itself almost entirely through the visual disturbances of an aura. The migraineur may never have an ache in the head at all. The entire episode is a matter of seeing things strangely.

Ocular Migraine Symptoms

How do I know if I have an ocular migraine? I may not know for sure that it is ocular migraine. I may believe I am experiencing changes in my vision. I may even think I am losing my eyesight. The experience can be quite terrifying.

I might ask three physicians what is wrong, and get three different answers. Even if all three agree that it is ocular migraine, they may view it differently. The first may understand ocular migraine as an episode in which the sufferer has the visual disturbances of a migraine aura, but never a headache. The second might define ocular migraine as one-sided blind spots in front of the eyes. The third might say that ocular migraine is temporary blindness that lasts less than an hour and is associated with a headache.

So how do I know if I have an ocular migraine? Here are specific symptoms.

1. Ocular migraine normally affects only one eye at a time. The affected eye may experience one or more of the symptoms.

2. The eye affected by ocular migraine seems to be looking through a window pane flowing with water. Whether you are looking at a child in the room with you or at a computer screen, it will seem as though a watery window is between one eye and the object you are viewing.

3. In ocular migraine, the area you can see with that one eye without shifting your gaze will seem to have holes in it. It will be as though you are looking at a photograph from which someone has cut holes. There will be nothing where the holes are. You may be looking at a group of people, and be unable to see one face. Maybe you are looking at papers on your desk, and the ocular migraine punches holes in the papers.

4. The ocular migraine-affected eye may see everything shaded by gray. A sky of blue becomes a gray-blue sky. Pink lemonade becomes gray-pink.

5. While the eye affected by ocular migraine gives a distorted image, the other eye remains clear and normal.

6. Symptoms of ocular migraine are temporary. During your first episode, you may feel frightened and wonder if you will ever see properly again. You will learn with each ocular migraine, however, that within an hour, your eyesight has returned to what is normal for you.

7. Ocular migraine interferes with normal daily activities. Since one eye is experiencing visual disturbances, there are many normal activities that you will not be able to perform adequately. You may have to take an hour away from work. You will not be able to read, drive, operate machinery, or do other things that require full eyesight.

Testing for Ocular Migraine

You will want to seek advice from a physician, but you can test yourself before doing so. While experiencing what you think may be ocular migraine, cover or close one eye. Repeat with the second eye. If the visual disturbances are limited to one eye, you may be having ocular migraine.

CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional, and presents the information here for educational purposes only. Please see a physician if you have unexplained visual disturbances.