A few weeks ago a driver I know said something weird happened with his vision. He described it very well. A bright spot appeared just like when you look at a bright light and are dazzled for a while, but he could not read words in full and bits were missing. He could see where to go and other vehicles etc but things just didn’t seem right. He pulled in to stop. The whole thing lasted almost half an hour. After he felt washed out and bad. He never got any headache but though he’d had a stroke but later his GP diagnosed it as migraine aura without headache. He is considering quitting driving even if the DVLA say its ok.
I’ve had this happen myself on odd occasions but with me it’s usually diary products that trigger them. So I avoid those foods. I do not generally get a headache but sometimes a stiff neck. They are damned horrible things Tbh I’d rather have bad Asthma than bloody Visual migraine aura and this driver I spoke to agreed.
“Visual migraines or migraine aura often last 20-30 minutes on many occasions do not cause a headache. They start out as a bright spot in the field of vision, you might have difficulty reading for example letters will be missing and you might see only half of a word. The blind spot will expand before moving across your visual field appearing as zig zag lines before moving to the outside of your vision and dissapearing.
Does anyone else suffer this? If so do you take any medications to prevent them or avoid certain foods as some foods can cause them in some people.
There are probably several hundreds of thousands of large vehicle drivers in the UK arctic drivers, delivery drivers, coach drivers, thousands of bus drivers in big cities like London and other cities and localities, bin wagon drivers etc. Surely there must be a lot of people with this condition on the road. The DVLA website doesn’t mention Migraine as a notifiable condition.
I’m sure a lot of people especially drivers probably think these symptoms are due to, tired eyes, eye strain, tiredness or maybe they need new glasses if they wear specs. Not knowing it’s Migraine aura they have. It’s very difficult to describe Migraine aura my this fellow driver mentioned described it to a T.
Any experiences or opinions of this awful condition?
Yes, migraines for a 4yr period from late 40’s- usually started with stiff neck, occasional visual aura, and feeling unbelievably vile( like you’ve just had an almighty kicking usually followed by throwing up and an instant need to sleep).
Very different from a headache- completely incapacitating.
Had a fab GP who worked with me to find root cause and high Blood pressure was the cause.
Had Sumatriptan medication to “ head off migraine at the pass”- you know really well when they are starting- but since BP regulated the problem has gone.
Had something similar with what i thought was a vertigo episode!ok one minute just chatting then turned to walk away and got a strange dizzy/balance type thing come over me,half an hour later throwing up feeling all round like ■■■■■ and all felt abit blurred.As the op said the next day was totally drained and just wanted to sleep.Went to hossie got checked out they did all the tests and couldnt really put there finger on it!?
I use to get them all the time & after the flashy lights had passed I would be left with a thumping headache & the only way to shift it was to lay down for a few hours. All the best to your mate I hope it all gets sorted.
Suffer from this very rare I get headaches but eyes feel heavy just need them to close lie down preferably dark sleep most of day not sure what triggers mine
It’s been over 10 yrs since I last suffered a migraine episode, I initially put it down to having Soft & hard cheese thru the day, the last time was after having an energy drink that I’d not had before, I’m fortunate that I’ve not had one since removing both these things from my diet. My visual disturbance was rings blurring my vision, which grew smaller and smaller, until everything was a blur. No other symptoms, and after a full nights sleep I was right as rain. My wife said it really freaked her out, seeing me so ill but fresh as a daisy 12 hrs later!
I’ve given up driving & have been working in IT for a number of years - from time to time I get the zigzags mainly when its bright sunshine outside.
I normally rest my eyes for a while & It goes away - only recently did I find out from my Optician it was a kind of migraine, but he didn’t suggest it was anything to worry about too much.
However If driving it is a no brainer to pull over & rest your eyes
I had migraines for a while before I realised what they were - bad visual aura, sickness, headache. Once diagnosed 2 red migralieve at the first symptoms stopped it within a few minutes. They stopped altogether a few years ago but there is plenty of help for it, no need to suffer anymore
I’ve had it where my vision suddenly looks like I’m suddenly flying a spitfire, and taking a rolling dive to the left to engage… sensation of falling down, and you feel the need to lie down quick, or at least shut your eyes to push back the overwealming “motion sickness” felt. Of course, doing either of those two things “isn’t very helpful” if you’re say, driving a truck around the M25 at that moment! I would describe the feeling as similar to getting off a fairground ride like the Waltzer, but then I never really got on with the type of ride that “chucks you about all over the place” rather than just lifts you up in the air, or goes very fast…
Tried giving up sugar and alcohol to start with, and eventually I found that it was over-the-counter pills, namely nurofen that I’d developed some kind of intolerance to, having taken them for years before that point.
“Sudden onset vision impairment”.
Agree with the other posters though - It is totally incapacitating, and down right scary when driving. It is one thing to be able to pull onto the hard shoulder if one doesn’t feel well, but imagine where we would be if driving down a country lane, rush hour traffic, in a tunnel, or even trying to embark/disembark onto a ferry? 20-30 seconds is long enough for disaster at any of these “critical moments”…
I had it happen when I was at a remote depot and not driving at that moment… I practically fell out of the cab, puked in the gutter, and told boss that I needed to go to hospital, where after a 3 hour wait in casualty - they diagnosed me with “Motion Sickness” FFS. Don’t think I want to be making a regular thing of THAT!. Felt like a bit of an idiot, bearing in mind I already felt better on the way TO hospital, and felt a bit of a fraud for pressing the panic button a little early perhaps… Better safe than sorry though!
no1dieselman:
I had migraines for a while before I realised what they were - bad visual aura, sickness, headache. Once diagnosed 2 red migralieve at the first symptoms stopped it within a few minutes. They stopped altogether a few years ago but there is plenty of help for it, no need to suffer anymore
Did the Migralieve tablets actually stop the visual aura after a few mins?
Winseer:
I’ve had it where my vision suddenly looks like I’m suddenly flying a spitfire, and taking a rolling dive to the left to engage… sensation of falling down, and you feel the need to lie down quick, or at least shut your eyes to push back the overwealming “motion sickness” felt. Of course, doing either of those two things “isn’t very helpful” if you’re say, driving a truck around the M25 at that moment! I would describe the feeling as similar to getting off a fairground ride like the Waltzer, but then I never really got on with the type of ride that “chucks you about all over the place” rather than just lifts you up in the air, or goes very fast…
Tried giving up sugar and alcohol to start with, and eventually I found that it was over-the-counter pills, namely nurofen that I’d developed some kind of intolerance to, having taken them for years before that point.
“Sudden onset vision impairment”.
Agree with the other posters though - It is totally incapacitating, and down right scary when driving. It is one thing to be able to pull onto the hard shoulder if one doesn’t feel well, but imagine where we would be if driving down a country lane, rush hour traffic, in a tunnel, or even trying to embark/disembark onto a ferry? 20-30 seconds is long enough for disaster at any of these “critical moments”…
I had it happen when I was at a remote depot and not driving at that moment… I practically fell out of the cab, puked in the gutter, and told boss that I needed to go to hospital, where after a 3 hour wait in casualty - they diagnosed me with “Motion Sickness” FFS. Don’t think I want to be making a regular thing of THAT!. Felt like a bit of an idiot, bearing in mind I already felt better on the way TO hospital, and felt a bit of a fraud for pressing the panic button a little early perhaps… Better safe than sorry though!
It’s a horrible condition. Must be even worse for bus and coach drivers, I mean what do you do with a bus full of passengers at rush hour when it happens? I bet there are bus drivers who do get it especially when you look at the hundreds of buses in London alone and many other cities and all the national express buses and private coach firms. Amazed how they would deal with it.
As I said given the choice I’d rather have severe Asthma than those horrid migraine aura things. At least with Asthma it doesn’t affect vision or make you really bad. All you do is take a few puffs of an inhaler and the Asthma attack goes. Pity there wasnt something like that for Migraine aura.
Even diabetes I could tolerate having to inject insulin everyday rather than living under the constant fear of migraine aura.
It’s sad when you wish you were a slave to some other chronic health condition or could swap rather than having migraine aura.
just over a year ago i ended up in hosp. with a migraneous aura [no headache] i thought id had a stroke ! and because i said id thought id had a stroke i ended up spending a night on the stroke ward-the place of real nightmares. A doctor the next day told me about the aura and said youre overweight . What i wiitnessed in that ward really shocked me to the core ,men in nappies/gibbering wrecks who the week before were working as per . anyhow since then iv lost 4 stone and 1 more to go [was 18stone] altho i felt lousy at first losing the first 2 stones i felt like ■■■■ for weeks but feel great now
The first time it happened, I was driving along when it slowly dawned on me that all the other cars on the road only had three wheels. The shimmering rainbow had cut out a chunk of my vision but my brain did its best patch up what I was seeing. I was told it was caused by chocolate or red wine. I tried a massive claret and stilton OD with no effect. I now think the attacks are triggered by bright, low level sunlight reflection off car windows, or by stress. I can carry on working through the attack which last about 20 minutes but it leaves me feeling rough. Its best to park up, lie down in the dark and wait until the rainbow has completed its circumnavigation of my field of vision I sometimes feel strangely elated after an attack.
I get migraines quite often and have I’ve a few ocular migraines in the past which is what you’re describing.
It starts as a small dot in my eye, then slowly expands with flashing lights all around it. Lasts for 15-30mins and then fades, it certainly got me panicking the 1st time it happened but a quick trip to the opticians confirmed they are quite normal and nothing to worry about.
I had my first visual migraine about 20 years ago, it scared the crap out of me, I was sick and it made me feel like I’d lost my marbles for about a week.
When I saw my GP he told me it was a visual migraine and explained it was basically a very small blood vessel in the brain going pop, similar to a stroke but on a much much lesser level.
There is no cure and the majority of drugs won’t do a thing, the so called speciality migraine drugs are a complete waste of time.
My GP told me to get 2 or 3 aspirin down me as soon as I see the first indications of one coming on, in my case small squiggly lines in my peripheral vision, he explained that the aspirin will thin the blood very quickly and help prevent any further popping of vessels, and as ridiculous and unbelievable as it sounds it’s worked without fail for 20 years now.
Sometimes I can get 2 or 3 a week, other times not get one for months, but I always have aspirin close to hand whatever I’m doing, wherever I am.
Seaside2018:
“Visual migraines or migraine aura often last 20-30 minutes on many occasions do not cause a headache. They start out as a bright spot in the field of vision, you might have difficulty reading for example letters will be missing and you might see only half of a word. The blind spot will expand before moving across your visual field appearing as zig zag lines before moving to the outside of your vision and disappearing.
OMG…I’ve had this. Thats a perfect description of it. Only a few times and no other symptoms, no headache or tiredness or owt. Lasts 20 minutes and gone. I can remember the first time it happened, I was reading a book in bright sunlight. Must be 25 years ago now. Its happened a few times since but not recently.
I had migraines regularly as a teenager .
Horrible nasty ones with loss of vision and banging headaches that often led to passing out .
I had a long course of medication and pills to take if a headache started and others to take if the headache continued, the warning was to lay down in a cool dark room before taking the final medication which usually saw me sleep for at least 4 hrs .
Thankfully I only get one every couple of years these days , normally due to poor sleep and dehydration.
Used to get it a lot when i first started driving, set off by something bright, snow or sunshine on a wet road, only way to get rid was pull over for 30 mins and put the seat back and pull the black bunk curtain over my face, total blackness for 20 minutes would usually shift it, must be 10 yrs or more since i had one though
Optimum:
The first time it happened, I was driving along when it slowly dawned on me that all the other cars on the road only had three wheels. The shimmering rainbow had cut out a chunk of my vision but my brain did its best patch up what I was seeing. I was told it was caused by chocolate or red wine. I tried a massive claret and stilton OD with no effect. I now think the attacks are triggered by bright, low level sunlight reflection off car windows, or by stress. I can carry on working through the attack which last about 20 minutes but it leaves me feeling rough. Its best to park up, lie down in the dark and wait until the rainbow has completed its circumnavigation of my field of vision I sometimes feel strangely elated after an attack.
I think that’s called “Azul” or “Azur” - where your brain makes up visual data for your visual cortex, because your eyes are literally deceiving you.
I have a nasty feeling it is a DVLA-notifyable thing that’ll lose you you licence, if there are repeated attacks, or simply no regained vision after such an “attack”.
Stress and Tiredness - must aggravate these conditions as well of course, not to mention ‘age’.
