Many of the same factors that trigger migraine can also trigger migraine with aura, including stress, bright lights, some foods and medications, too much or too little sleep, and menstruation.
Although uncomfortable, migraine aura isn't dangerous. However, it can mimic symptoms of other serious conditions, such as stroke. Therefore, it's important to seek medical care if you think something suspicious is going on.
While head pain is the most common (and sometimes the most intense) sign of migraine, you can also have other symptoms. You might confuse some signs of migraine with other conditions, including scary ones like stroke or epilepsy.
Migraine auras can be confused with transient ischaemic attack (TIA), where someone has stroke symptoms that pass in a short time. For instance, a migraine with only a visual aura but no headache may be mistaken for TIA. Like a stroke, a migraine can be sudden and can lead to mild confusion.
Aura is a series of sensory disturbances that happen shortly before a migraine attack. These disturbances range from seeing sparks, bright dots, and zig zags to tingling on one side of the body or an inability to speak clearly, and usually last 20-60 minutes.
Focal seizures and seizure aura can mimic migraine aura. Visual migraine aura can be confused for occipital seizures and vice versa, although symptoms are classically distinct.
When you're having a migraine with aura, stay in a quiet, dark room. Try putting cold compresses or pressure on the painful areas. Over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or naproxen may help.
It's important to visit a doctor if you experience migraine aura without headache frequently. This can help rule out other conditions that cause aura or visual disturbances and get an accurate diagnosis. “Episodic aura without headache is usually not a problem.
The three types of migraine aura
Visual aura is the most common and accounts for 90% of all auras. Visual aura can present as seeing spots, zig zags, flashes or even losing sight for a short time.
Regular migraine attacks can also cause vision problems, called an aura, which can involve flashing lights and blind spots. But these symptoms usually happen in both eyes. Talk to your doctor to find out if you have ocular migraine. They can rule out other conditions that can cause similar symptoms.
Factors that can trigger a migraine aura without a headache are the same factors that trigger one that's followed by head pain—stress, weather changes, food with MSG, light, and demographic factors that increase a person's risk of migraines like genetics.
Harsh lighting, long screen time, other visual strain, stress, dehydration, food additives, and other causes all may trigger an ocular migraine, a subtype that focuses in the eye and causes vision changes.
People who have migraines with aura are more likely to have strokes caused by either a blood clot in the heart (cardio-embolic stroke) or a clot within the brain's blood vessels (thrombotic stroke), compared to those that don't have migraines with aura, according to research presented at the American Stroke ...
You can get them as often as several times a week or as little as once a year. Auras show up in about 1 in 3 people with migraine, but you're not likely to get them every time.
Auras commonly last 10 to 30 minutes. A sensory aura is also common. It can occur at the same time as the visual aura, directly afterwards or simply on its own. A sensory aura begins as a tingling in one limb or a feeling of numbness that travels up your arm over 10 to 20 minutes.
Clinically, sleep deprivation or excessive sleep, as well as other sleep disturbances are among to the most common attack triggers reported by patients with primary headaches (e.g. migraine without aura [25, 29], migraine with aura [30], familial hemiplegic migraine [31], tension-type headache [32, 33]).
Curiously, migraine aura tends to increase with age and often presents without headache. This correlates with other studies that show that visual aura and other disturbances (such as zig zag lines known as scintillating scotoma) are more common in older headache patients.
In general, migraine aura is harmless. The symptoms usually last for less than an hour and go away completely.
Yes, anxiety can be a form of aura, and auras are not always partial seizures. For example, people with migraines get auras that are not seizures. Unexplained anxiety or fear can also be a symptom of other health issues, like a blood clot.
For some people, aura might occur before or during migraines. Auras are reversible symptoms of the nervous system. They're usually visual, but they also can include other disturbances. Each symptom usually begins gradually, builds up over several minutes and lasts 20 minutes to one hour.
The auras usually last for about five minutes to an hour. Aura can sometimes occur without a headache. A migraine aura that affects your vision is common. Visual symptoms don't last long.
A migraine is a common neurological disease that causes a variety of symptoms, most notably a throbbing, pulsing headache on one side of your head. Your migraine will likely get worse with physical activity, lights, sounds or smells.
A migraine-aura triggered seizure is defined as a seizure that occurs due to a migraine with aura and is not observed in migraines without aura. Experts suggest that migraine aura-induced seizures occur due to electrical changes in the brain that accompany an aura.
Common postdrome symptoms include fatigue, nausea, sensitivity to light, dizziness, body aches, and difficulty concentrating. One postdrome sufferer described the day after a migraine headache as feeling like “a mental fog, one so heavy that even routine tasks take on an otherworldly quality.”