Vision disturbances

[Barbara Stewart]

I thought I'd start another thread on this. After reading the last few posts on Ross' thread, I realized I had something like the brightness he described. I've had a few of what I suppose is an ocular migraine, where there is a weird "wheel" turning in my line of vision, but the brightness was the other day. I've been having high blood pressure lately. Low blood pressure has never been my problem. Anyone else have this? What do you think Ross?
Barbara

 

[Ross]

Do a search on it and you'll find lots of references to these. It's a common complaint that seems to go unheeded by the medical community.

 

[musician2k]

Ross is right, these do tend to unheeded by the medical community. I think that lack of attention stems from a lack of neurolgical knowledge about just what, physically, is going on during ocular migraine, whether it be post-OHS or of the more 'regular' variety. Fact is no one, not even neuros, really knows what causes any type of migraine. Oh, there are theories and some of the medicines seem to work and thus support those theories.

After I came home from the hospital, I had a solid week of 2 to 4 ocular migraines, sometimes with pain and one day with 2 episodes of TIA-like confusion. Called the cardio & he suggested I go back on one baby aspirin per day. Since then, no more migraines. What gives THERE? Can migraines be caused by platelet problems that aspirin therapy seems to have relieved in my case? Or were the migraines due to leftovers from the surgery and things just happened to heal? My neuro doesn't know the answer to this one but did diagnose me with complicated migraine now....

 

[Sherry]

I too suffered from those things for years. Last year, my primary doc put me on an every other day dose of Plavix (I was bruising too badly for the every day dose), and lo and behold, they were diminished. I've still had a few over the past year but nothing like what I've had before.

 

[tommy]

I had some vision episodes in the first few days following surgery. They were kind of like picture in a picture. The surgeon thought that they might be a side effect of morphine. They went away within a week.

 

[PJmomrunner]

Can migraines be caused by platelet problems that aspirin therapy seems to have relieved in my case? Or were the migraines due to leftovers from the surgery and things just happened to heal? My neuro doesn't know the answer to this one but did diagnose me with complicated migraine now....

The answer to this is "Yes"! Ocular migraines absolutely can be caused by platelet problems (although that may not be the only cause, I suppose). I've been on low dose aspirin therapy for years for migraines/ocular migraines or "auras" that I'm told are attributable to a diagnosed platelet problem called Lupus Antigoagulant. It's one of many forms of thrombophilias (too-much-clotting disorders). If I forget to take my aspirin for a couple days, I nearly always get an ocular migraine or two. There are at least a couple other members with this sort of disorder. I believe some of them can be acquired, although I don't know how. For more info check out: http://www.genome.gov/17516396