5 ms·

I have self diagnosed (never saw a doc) Ocular Migraines, and the first time i encountered one it both amazed me and terrified me. I was working and i noticed

I have self diagnosed (never saw a doc) Ocular Migraines, and the first time i encountered one it both amazed me and terrified me. I was working and i noticed something was off with my vision, i couldn't read a label. I went to the bathroom and didn't see anything. I eventually realized i had a large deadspot in my vision that my mind was just... autocompleting. It looked flawless, but then i'd pass my hand slowly infront of the deadspot and there would be this strange artifact. My hand would be missing a finger, or this odd blending with the mirror behind it, etc. It was like some poorly ML generated object removal. The scary thing was i had several, and had no idea. As i experimented with it further that day i was able to disappear entire vehicles (i wasn't driving thankfully), forklifts, etc. I've only had ~half a dozen in my lifetime that i'm aware of, but i'm still quite fearful of experiencing one while i'm driving. As i likely would not realize what was wrong with me, immediately. edit: Oh i should note, as the "migraine" clears, it turns the blindspots into this weird crystalline structure. Kinda like looking through a prism. It's a pretty crazy experience.

mym1990 4y ago
I get these as well, it seems very random. I might have one 3 days in a row, and then not have one for 3 months. About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. The shimmer basically moves left to right/right to left until it dissipates in about 30 minutes to 1 hour. It started in high school, and back then the migraines were the absolute worst pain I had ever experienced. Now they are more or less just normal headaches(sometimes no headache at all even).
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  Have you checked if there's a correlation with caffeine? I get these too, and like one of the other replies to the parent mentioned, in my case it's definitely connected to drinking too much coffee.
  - franga2000 4y ago
    I remember a recent-ish study that found a strong correlation at 3 or more (or was it more than 3?) coffees in a day, but was inconclusive below that amount. I don't know what the unit of coffee was (probably standard espresso) and I unfortunately no longer remember the source. There are a bunch of different triggers though and they vary from person to person. Coffee is one I hear very often. For me, the worst is the combination of at least two of {hunger, dehydration, physical activity}.
  - mym1990 4y ago
    Sounds about right, I drink a massive amount of coffee. The weird thing to me is that my routine is pretty consistent, but I get the auras pretty sporadically. I have also heard that dark chocolate can be a trigger, and some other things.
- philsnow 4y ago
  > About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. I've had only a couple of these in my life, both brought on by stress. For me they've both been preceded by about 15 minutes of a "feeling of impending doom" (which apparently is an actual medical symptom).
pitaj 4y ago
I get this kind of thing when I (very rarely) get a migraine. Interestingly, it comes on like 20min before the terrible crushing headache begins.
- lavasalesman 4y ago
  Migraine rescue medications that target CGRP receptors like Nurtec or Ubrelvy would help with this. They're modern migraine meds and have no side effects for me.
- franga2000 4y ago
  Same for me. It's a useful warning to immediately drop whatever I'm doing, cancel all my plans for the day and find a dark room to hide in. That said, now that I've found a drug that works extremely well for me, I can often recover in less than an hour and continue my day with only something like a mild hangover. If you haven't already, definitely talk to a doctor and look into migraine-specific medication. They work like magic and the new stuff actually seems pretty safe. I never leave home without an emergency pill in my wallet.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  This might sound weird, but I can often stop the headache from happening after getting aura by doing pushups or running on the spot to get some blood/adrenaline flowing and/or drinking a coke (I never drink coke normally). Sometimes it doesn't work, but mostly it does.
d_tr 4y ago
It wouldn't hurt to verify that these are harmless by seeing a doctor. It will probably be a 10' examination.
- lijogdfljk 4y ago
  Good point. I'll bring it up on my next visit, though it's been .. boy, 8 years since i had one last? Nevertheless, doesn't hurt to ask on routine visits.
hcarvalhoalves 4y ago
I have this too, when I drink too much coffee.
- lijogdfljk 4y ago
  Back in those days i was quite heavily under sleeping and over coffee'ing, so quite possible. I haven't had an episode in ~8 years, but i also sleep and coffee intentionally these days.
robotnikman 4y ago
I recently started having these as well. Only found out they were migraines when I asked my doc during an eye exam. Thankfully my eyes are otherwise fine
rikschennink 4y ago
I have these as well, but what you describe a crystalline structure is there from the start and then it expands to encompass my right side vision before disappearing out of the edge of my eye sight. If anyone is wondering what this looks like, this video gets quite close: https://youtu.be/qVFIcF9lyk8 https://youtu.be/qVFIcF9lyk8
- Sakos 4y ago
  That's close to what mine look like, though the crystalline part is much larger and can stretch across my entire vision. It's incredibly disturbing. Thankfully haven't had it in years.
manwe150 4y ago
Everyone normally has a small blind spot right off center (it is mentioned near the end in the tweet list), and can hide small objects, if you want to experience the same feeling at a small scale. There is a bright fluorescent bike helmet sitting in front of me right now, and if I close one eye and look slightly to the side it vanishes completely from my sight! Very weird feeling to know something is in my eyesight and cannot see it.
random314 4y ago
I had the same problem! Surprised to find the diagnosis on HN!
graypegg 4y ago
It’s always weird to hear someone describe migraines! I’ve had the exact same experience. At first it’s a weird feeling that I “missed” something, then I have trouble reading, then that sort of bad -ML-object-removal spot shows up with sparkly prism patterns around it. It grows until it’s half of my vision, and by the point I’m normally keeled over in pain if I didn’t take any triptans through that process. When I was younger and had no idea what triggered them, I’d also get pretty bad aphasia and be almost unable to form sentences. It’s really a full-brain experience. I can totally suggest going to a neurologist. Triptans (either as an autoinjector, or a tablet that dissolves under your tongue) have made a massive impact on my life. They’ve never stopped pain 100%, but I’ve come out of that aura long enough to get home.
franga2000 4y ago
I love your comparison with bad ML image inpainting. Not only does it kind of look like that, but it also feels like it. The picture looks fine until you focus on that one bit and it turns out there's no real information there. It's very hard to fully covey it to someone who hasn't experienced it, but this plus what happens when you look into a very bright light comes close. It would be really interesting to look at different scenes and patterns to see how my brain reconstruct it, if it weren't for the crushing headache that I know will follow in 10-30 minutes from the first sign and wipe me out for at least the rest of the day.
phs318u 4y ago
Sounds like a scintillating scotoma. It's a kind of migraine that sometimes preceeds, or comes with or without the headache usually associated with migraine. I get them occasionally. Definitely don't want to be driving when it happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=scintillating+scotoma&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=scintillating+scotoma&iax=i...
ssss11 4y ago
My migraines start this way then all that visual stuff stops and I get a killer headache following it. Thankfully I’m getting less and less of them as I get older.
notatree 4y ago
I had these off and on over the years, and they somewhat seemed associated with stress, lack of sleep, to much/to little coffee etc, but recently they became more and more frequent. To the point of having them every couple of days. However, getting eyeglasses has dramatically reduced the occurrence. I hadn't notice I needed eyeglasses, I could see things just fine, but apparently one eye is quite a bit worse than the other, and my brain was just doing some extra processing and making everything look OK. Eye doctor speculated that this extra processing was the cause of the ocular migraines. Now, whenever I start looking a screen to program or whatever without my glasses, I can start feeling the impending tension building towards a migraine, and unless I put them on, will almost inevitability get the whole ocular migraine experience, and be useless for the rest of the day.

mym1990 4y ago

I get these as well, it seems very random. I might have one 3 days in a row, and then not have one for 3 months. About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. The shimmer basically moves left to right/right to left until it dissipates in about 30 minutes to 1 hour. It started in high school, and back then the migraines were the absolute worst pain I had ever experienced. Now they are more or less just normal headaches(sometimes no headache at all even).

Analemma_ 4y ago
Have you checked if there's a correlation with caffeine? I get these too, and like one of the other replies to the parent mentioned, in my case it's definitely connected to drinking too much coffee.
- franga2000 4y ago
  I remember a recent-ish study that found a strong correlation at 3 or more (or was it more than 3?) coffees in a day, but was inconclusive below that amount. I don't know what the unit of coffee was (probably standard espresso) and I unfortunately no longer remember the source. There are a bunch of different triggers though and they vary from person to person. Coffee is one I hear very often. For me, the worst is the combination of at least two of {hunger, dehydration, physical activity}.
- mym1990 4y ago
  Sounds about right, I drink a massive amount of coffee. The weird thing to me is that my routine is pretty consistent, but I get the auras pretty sporadically. I have also heard that dark chocolate can be a trigger, and some other things.
philsnow 4y ago
> About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. I've had only a couple of these in my life, both brought on by stress. For me they've both been preceded by about 15 minutes of a "feeling of impending doom" (which apparently is an actual medical symptom).

pitaj 4y ago

I get this kind of thing when I (very rarely) get a migraine. Interestingly, it comes on like 20min before the terrible crushing headache begins.

lavasalesman 4y ago
Migraine rescue medications that target CGRP receptors like Nurtec or Ubrelvy would help with this. They're modern migraine meds and have no side effects for me.
franga2000 4y ago
Same for me. It's a useful warning to immediately drop whatever I'm doing, cancel all my plans for the day and find a dark room to hide in. That said, now that I've found a drug that works extremely well for me, I can often recover in less than an hour and continue my day with only something like a mild hangover. If you haven't already, definitely talk to a doctor and look into migraine-specific medication. They work like magic and the new stuff actually seems pretty safe. I never leave home without an emergency pill in my wallet.
brokenmachine 4y ago
This might sound weird, but I can often stop the headache from happening after getting aura by doing pushups or running on the spot to get some blood/adrenaline flowing and/or drinking a coke (I never drink coke normally). Sometimes it doesn't work, but mostly it does.

d_tr 4y ago

It wouldn't hurt to verify that these are harmless by seeing a doctor. It will probably be a 10' examination.

lijogdfljk 4y ago
Good point. I'll bring it up on my next visit, though it's been .. boy, 8 years since i had one last? Nevertheless, doesn't hurt to ask on routine visits.

hcarvalhoalves 4y ago

I have this too, when I drink too much coffee.

lijogdfljk 4y ago
Back in those days i was quite heavily under sleeping and over coffee'ing, so quite possible. I haven't had an episode in ~8 years, but i also sleep and coffee intentionally these days.

robotnikman 4y ago

I recently started having these as well. Only found out they were migraines when I asked my doc during an eye exam. Thankfully my eyes are otherwise fine

rikschennink 4y ago

I have these as well, but what you describe a crystalline structure is there from the start and then it expands to encompass my right side vision before disappearing out of the edge of my eye sight. If anyone is wondering what this looks like, this video gets quite close: https://youtu.be/qVFIcF9lyk8 https://youtu.be/qVFIcF9lyk8

Sakos 4y ago
That's close to what mine look like, though the crystalline part is much larger and can stretch across my entire vision. It's incredibly disturbing. Thankfully haven't had it in years.

manwe150 4y ago

Everyone normally has a small blind spot right off center (it is mentioned near the end in the tweet list), and can hide small objects, if you want to experience the same feeling at a small scale. There is a bright fluorescent bike helmet sitting in front of me right now, and if I close one eye and look slightly to the side it vanishes completely from my sight! Very weird feeling to know something is in my eyesight and cannot see it.

random314 4y ago

I had the same problem! Surprised to find the diagnosis on HN!

graypegg 4y ago

It’s always weird to hear someone describe migraines! I’ve had the exact same experience. At first it’s a weird feeling that I “missed” something, then I have trouble reading, then that sort of bad -ML-object-removal spot shows up with sparkly prism patterns around it. It grows until it’s half of my vision, and by the point I’m normally keeled over in pain if I didn’t take any triptans through that process. When I was younger and had no idea what triggered them, I’d also get pretty bad aphasia and be almost unable to form sentences. It’s really a full-brain experience. I can totally suggest going to a neurologist. Triptans (either as an autoinjector, or a tablet that dissolves under your tongue) have made a massive impact on my life. They’ve never stopped pain 100%, but I’ve come out of that aura long enough to get home.

franga2000 4y ago

I love your comparison with bad ML image inpainting. Not only does it kind of look like that, but it also feels like it. The picture looks fine until you focus on that one bit and it turns out there's no real information there. It's very hard to fully covey it to someone who hasn't experienced it, but this plus what happens when you look into a very bright light comes close. It would be really interesting to look at different scenes and patterns to see how my brain reconstruct it, if it weren't for the crushing headache that I know will follow in 10-30 minutes from the first sign and wipe me out for at least the rest of the day.

phs318u 4y ago

Sounds like a scintillating scotoma. It's a kind of migraine that sometimes preceeds, or comes with or without the headache usually associated with migraine. I get them occasionally. Definitely don't want to be driving when it happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=scintillating+scotoma&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=scintillating+scotoma&iax=i...

ssss11 4y ago

My migraines start this way then all that visual stuff stops and I get a killer headache following it. Thankfully I’m getting less and less of them as I get older.

notatree 4y ago

I had these off and on over the years, and they somewhat seemed associated with stress, lack of sleep, to much/to little coffee etc, but recently they became more and more frequent. To the point of having them every couple of days. However, getting eyeglasses has dramatically reduced the occurrence. I hadn't notice I needed eyeglasses, I could see things just fine, but apparently one eye is quite a bit worse than the other, and my brain was just doing some extra processing and making everything look OK. Eye doctor speculated that this extra processing was the cause of the ocular migraines. Now, whenever I start looking a screen to program or whatever without my glasses, I can start feeling the impending tension building towards a migraine, and unless I put them on, will almost inevitability get the whole ocular migraine experience, and be useless for the rest of the day.