I DO have an Aura...

You may recall that I discovered in a post on Kirlian, that I had no Aura. Well I've since realised that I do have an 'aura', I just forgot at the time. So I thought I'd share my 'aura' with you...




I had a migraine headache last night... well actually it wasn't… well it was a migraine, but it wasn't a headache... but it was a real pain though.

When I get a migraine, I get all of the symptoms bar one... the pain. It really is weird because I know where the pain should be, I know I should be wincing with it, but I'm not. I do get the 'aura', I do feel nauseous and at times quite unwell, but no pain.

The weirdest part is this…
…my head throbs. It throbs so much that I’m sure others near by should be able to either hear it or see my head pulsating… yet I feel no pain.

But the symptom that really fascinates me is the ‘aura’. Here’s an explanation I found on the web…


Migraine headaches may be preceded by a visual "aura", lasting for 20 to 30 minutes, and then proceeding to the headache. Some people, however, experience the aura but do not have a headache. This visual aura can be very dramatic. Classically, a small blind spot appears in the central vision with a shimmering, zig-zag light inside of it. This enlarges, and moves to one side or the other of the vision, over a 20 to 30 minute period. When it is large, this crescent shaped blind spot containing this brightly flashing light can be difficult to ignore, and some people fear that they are having a stroke. In reality, it is generally a harmless phenomenon, except in people who subsequently get the headache of migraine. Since migraine originates in the brain, the visual effect typically involves the same side of vision in each eye, although it may seem more prominent in one eye or the other. Some people get different variations of this phenomenon, with the central vision being involved, or with the visual effect similar to "heat rising off of a car". Some people describe a "kaleidoscope" effect, with pieces of the vision being missing. All of these variations are consistent with ophthalmic migraine.

Mine actually starts at 1:00 o’clock… that’s clock position, not time… and progresses, spreads, down through two, three, four and when it gets to about 4:30 wanders off to the right and out of sight. My ‘aura’ is very much a shimmer with a coloured zig-zag central core running along its length. The shimmer is in grey hues and the zig-zag tends to be darker shades of grey culminating with a dark yet translucent blue in the very centre.

The ‘aura’ is the very first sign for me, and it starts off as a relatively small blotch on the periphery of my vision, and I often don’t notice it until it starts to increase in size and spread. It takes about thirty minutes to spread down to the 4:30 position and then it stays there for about another half hour after which it dissipates within ten minutes.

I often need to have a lay down when I have a migraine, but not always. So if I’m feeling okay I can function fairly well and I doubt if anyone would notice that I’m in the middle of a migraine. The ‘aura’ makes driving an interesting exercise, I sometimes find it hard to recognise people until they are standing close to me and reading an email written at that time can be quite illegible. The whole process fascinates me no end.

The trouble is, the day after a migraine finds me with a dull headache for much of the day, but it’s not severe enough for pain killers. Which is where I am today.

So there you go, I can’t even have a conventional migraine.




Bear