Uh-oh, pre-migraine aura...those dreaded zig-zaggy neon lights

[HereSince1628]

Before there were neon lights what did people call these????????

[Misunderestimator]

1. I refer to them as prisms...

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. i call the

cool light show

but i just experienced them a couple of times in my life

[HereSince1628]

5. Yeah, and their pretty

a growing twinkling arc of zig-zags

[Bouncy Ball]

2. Oh honey, I'm so sorry.

I feel you. I HATE those. :hug:

Do you have any meds you can take now, to head it off???? Get to a dark, quiet room??

[HereSince1628]

7. I've already popped the aspirin

now its just sit back and watch the show...

[Bouncy Ball]

8. Don't you have some prescription meds

that stop the migraine? I know I had some a while back, then they haven't happened in a while. There are all kinds of meds that can help stop them.....

[HereSince1628]

10. Never been to a physician about these...

I don't get them very often...I used to get them almost every week, and I concluded that some smell associated with the grocery aisle containing laundry detergent triggered them...really, I know that sounds wierd but I really think something there got to me.

[progmom]

12. My husband's migraines are often triggered by cigarette smoke.

We finally noticed a correlation between him waking up with a migraine and going to a smoky club the night before.

He also gets them the morning after any fights we have, but sometimes I wonder if that's just a subconscious ploy to get me to feel even worse about being so unreasonable. :)

[daisygirl]

17. Doesn't surprise me that the detergent aisle would set you off

That aisle makes me wheeze if I dare to breathe while I'm in it. So does the aisle with all that air freshener crap.

I feel for you--I've had exactly one migraine, about a year ago (I didn't see a doctor but it couldn't possibly have been anything else), and I hope like hell it never happens again. I'm still afraid to eat dark chocolate since I'd eaten a whole bunch of it shortly before it started and later read it can be a trigger for some people.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Mine look like little comets spiralling from the back of my head, into my

peripheral vision, and out the front of my eyes.

I always take aspirin when that happens, but it doesn't always forestall the headache. Sometimes I get it anyway, and wind up having to throw up before it goes away.

[LoZoccolo]

6. I've heard that the Excedrin migraine formula works well for some people.

It's basically aspirin, acetaminophen, and caffiene. Some people on here a while back were praising it, so I found a bottle of the cheap Walgreen's version and keep a bottle on my desk now. Haven't tried it yet, though.

[fairfaxvadem]

13. I keep that stuff around too.

The caffeine helps keep the blood vessels from constricting or something. When I get a really vicious one, I'll down a Coke or 2. I don't drink soda as a rule, but the caffeine and carbonation seem to help a lot.

[LoZoccolo]

14. I had one go away by drinking nice cold water too.

It seems like all sorts of things cause them, and I think dehydration might be one.

[progmom]

9. ooh - I get those.

Where I can't focus on the thing directly in front of me - it's blank, surrounded by halos of light.
That sucks big time. There's a medical term for it, which I have now forgotten.
Dark room, closed eyes, get horizontal. That's my advice.

[HereSince1628]

11. Well, we have pretty much the same symptoms...

The first time it happened to me I was driving and one of the rear wheels on the car in front of me "disappeared"

[Pithlet]

18. Ocular migraine

I had one recently, without the headache, which never developed. I went to the ophthalmologist to get checked out just in case, and that is what he called it.

[PrestoChango]

19. Migrainous Neuralgia maybe?

Did a report in high school about migraine. Have had them since I was 10... ALWAYS had the aura.

Some other info:

I have done a few things over the past year that have GREATLY reduced my migraines. Not sure which ones actually did something, but I am sure a few definitely contributed:

Quit Coffee (and caffeine in general as much as possible)
Drinking LOTS of water
Exercise (specifically Boabom and Saemm-Jasani)

Have had one migraine in 6 months and it was due to MSG that I was not aware was in something I ate. Prior to this, I was having them 1-4 times per month.

[nytemare]

28. Scintillating scotoma

Those things are a pain in the ass. Then I get numb, can't think straight, get the awful headache and nausea, sometimes throw up. They are awful.

I feel for everyone that gets them!

[flamingyouth]

15. I call them flashes

I take Imitrex when I think it might be really bad, or else I take Excedrin migraine, which works amazingly well for at OTC painkiller. Good luck. :pals:

[Ryano42]

16. Neon Dancing Snakes

Then loss of some peripheral vision...then BAM!

There are much less severe as I have gotten older...when I was in the teens they were dibilitatiing, I had to get quiet, dark and suffer.

Now decongestants and Ibuprofen knocks it down....I can even play goal the same day!

[yellowdogintexas]

20. funny how sudafed helps with these things.

I used to have to eat frenchfries and chug a Coke to run interference with mine. Since my hysterectomy I have had them rarely but for several years, I had one at least once a month

[lady lib]

21. I got occular migraines in my 20's from BC pills.

Of course, the doctor didn't warn me that could happen, so I thought I was having a stroke (my mother-in-law came to the rescue and told me what I had). It was like looking through shattered glass, with part of my field of vision completely gone and an aura in my peripheral field. Yikes! When I stopped taking them the problem went away.

[fishnfla]

22. I believe the term is prodromal photopsias

The literature describes various shapes and forms. Some people even see figures from "alice-in wonderland" playing card figures etc.

Aura is also a perfectly acceptable term, so you answered your own question

[hedgehog]

23. My dad had those for years but never mentioned them

since he thought he was the only one who ever had them until he read Oliver Sach's Migraine. Other people in my family get the light shows, too. All I get is the whoppping headache. Tea with milk and sugar, motrin and chocalate at the first sign are my cures. If I wait, the headache will hang on for several days sometimes.

[hedgehog]

24. This is weird

It'll feel like I've lost one side of my vision, but when I check, it's there . It's like the migraine keeps me from seeing unless I really look to that side.

[nytemare]

29. Mine start with the flashes too

That is my biggest indicator that I am getting a migraine. I know it is a migraine by closing one eye at a time to see if I still see the lights with both eyes. If they don't fade in a minute, I know it wasn't just me looking into a light or something.

They are strange. Imitrex and other medicines are great at getting rid of them. How often do you get them?

[neebob]

25. I just call them spots.

I started getting migraines when I was 13. I remember the first one, right down to what I was wearing. They were incapacitating and infrequent, like once or twice a year. My parents only believed me because I always threw up.

As I got older, they became more frequent and less severe. I get three or four a month, and I rarely even feel the headache, although sometimes I feel a bit nauseous. I just have to wait out the aura.

[barb162]

26. the auras I used to get were greyish-white hazy things, no flashings

the auras would start peripherally, gradually close in toward the central vision until I only had "cone" vision and then the damn headache would start. I hope I never have one again. I would be sick for 2 days in bed and I would be beyong non-functional and sick to my stomach too.

[ScreamingMeemie]

27. I call mine "Christmas Lights" because they look like little strings

of Christmas lights around the outer corners of my eyes. :hi: