After I had that recent visitation of the colorless optic paperclip migraine, the neurologist recommended I go see an ophthalmologist. I put that off.
Because really, what happened? My weird visual thing visited me again, just in black and white. The same thing happened with my weird green spinny thing I had for years. I still wake up and see it, only it’s grey now.
Plus, the black and white paper clips only happened once, and who knows if it will ever happen again? It might not! Almost certainly not!
And of course, it happened again yesterday. Much shorter in duration and paperclip chains.
So now Tuesday I need to call the ophthalmologist, and in preparation I decided to learn the terms.
Optic migraine – Not a term. Not a thing. Optic neuritis, sure. Optic nerve problem, yes. But the right term, damnit, is …
Ocular migraine – This is the term for flashy extra visual stimuli, be they colorful zig-zags or black and white paper clips.
Retinal migraine – An ocular migraine that only happens in one eye. I checked, mine’s in both eyes.
So I just have a plain ocular migraine, which only uses the term “migraine” because it’s in the brain. It doesn’t progress to a headache for me.
What triggers it?
- Spasms! Always with the spasms nowadays.
- Dehydration or caffeine (doubtful)
- Stress. The very first one happened the day before I started my first clinical trial. The first black and white one was while Gary had that UTI. The latest little short one lines up with a big work reorganization.
So, maybe someday it will all be like the spinny green light that faded into a spinny grey ball.
3 responses to “TWIL: Types of visual disturbances”
You’ve educated me today. I’ve always called it an optic migraine.
Thanks.
I also get those. When I went to the ophthalmologist and told him my story, he pulled a piece of paper out of his desk drawer to show me a picture of what an ocular migraine looks like. Honestly, I had been very worried but the picture helped a lot. I figured if it was so common there were pictures created of what they looked like, it wasn’t a disaster. There was a period when they were frequent and in the last 5 years they have become very infrequent. I will say they were way more common when I was teaching and the drop off was dramatic after I retired. I hope your situation settles down.
Kathy G – I asked a doctor if it was ocular or optic, and he said “both work.” Same with “walking pneumonia” and ” walk-in pneumonia.” Next time I get that answer I’m going to say “which do you use?”
Kathy – same with me – the next doctor I saw had a book open to a page illustrating what they look like (though no book can illustrate the shifting and the luminous colors.