Ocular migraine overview

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Ocular or ophthalmic migraine is common condition among women younger than 40, especially those who have a family history of the disease. Ocular migraine is sometimes associated with the brain and has strange symptoms. Some signs and symptoms that are related to tumors, aneurysms, strokes, and degenerative diseases require immediate medical treatment from the doctor.

Common symptoms of ocular migraine

Those signs include noticeable disruption of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and a sudden change in mental status, such as unusual memory loss or inability to recognize a familiar face. Difficulty in ambulating and communication are also worth enough alert. There are also unusually some non-ophthalmic migraine phenomena, which may appear crossed eyes, numb fingertips, tongue or bottom lip.

It is easy to note that some of the above symptoms are irrelevant to eyesight. This means ocular migraine involves a variety of sensations. For instance, numbness can precede or accompany a migraine episode. But visual symptoms are the most common, although they usually last a short time. Regular visual symptoms contain flashes of light, zigzagging patterns, blind spots and shimmering spots or stars, which occur always to both eyes. They may interfere with certain activities temporarily.

A log of migraine episodes details is necessary for proper treatment

It is necessary for migraine patients to keep a log of their ophthalmic migraine episodes, which is believed to help the doctor in monitoring the disease. The log should contain the date, time, length of each episode, as well as the experience during the hour before an episode. This information can help the doctor determine the tendency of the disease: either worsening or relieving. Knowing this tendency, it is easier for the doctor to determine further treatment.

Triggering factors may be discovered via log analysis

In addition, there are possibly some triggers of migraine episodes that can be found by analyzing the log. Stress and fatigue can trigger episodes in susceptible patients, and sometimes heavy dieting is also suspected. Some researches show that vitamin B is helpful in reducing migraine frequencies. When these triggering factors are found, the following step is to avoid them.