Ocular Migraines
When you hear the term migraine headache, more often than not you think of really bad throbbing headaches. What you may not instantly think of are the visual problems caused by changes in blood flow to the brain. These visual problems are part of migraine headaches and can occur whether you head hurts or not.
They are called ocular migraine headaches and can cause you to temporarily lose your vision. This can occur either in a single spot or in your entire eye. Ocular migraine headaches can also have other visual effects. It can be that you see spots of colorful light, like you would if you stared into a bright light for a couple of seconds and then quickly looked away this includes the spots and the zigzags of light that you would see. And in some cases you can actually see what appears to be an aura around people and objects.
The causes of an ocular migraine headache are still hazy. It is believed that the blood flow to your brain, more specifically around the area where the visual cortex or occipital lobe are located. Because this is the area with the blood flow problems, it is possible for you to suffer from an ocular migraine headache without any headaches or other symptoms.
You may suffer from nothing else during an ocular migraine headache, but it can be dangerous given certain situations. If you are driving you need to pull over. Even if you know the roads perfectly, it is dangerous to drive with any kind of vision impairment. The same goes with anything else that can end in injury.
To help your ocular headache pass, you should stop and relax for a few minutes. If your vision problems do not go away in this time, you need to stay put until they do. It can take up to half an hour if you are suffering from a bad one.
Though. For the most part having an ocular migraine headache can be painless; there may be other reasons for your seemingly random vision issues. For this reason you should go see an eye doctor if you either get these headaches a lot or you have lingering effects that last over a half hour. You may find that you are suffering from a retinal detachment, which needs treatment.