MIGRAINE: SYMPTOMS OF AN AURA

Mar
11
2009

Posted by: admin in Categories: Pain Relief-Muscle Relaxers.
Using Tags: Pain Relief

Abdominal migraine

Abdominal migraine is migraine that is perceived in the abdomen. It has exactly the same time span as common migraine, but never has any visual symptoms, or any other aura symptoms, such as paralysis. It isn’t due to blood vessel instability, but may well be due to disordered movement and spasm of the muscles in the gut. The symptoms are abdominal pain, vomiting, sometimes with giddiness, and a dislike of bright lights. Disturbances of mood are common. There may be irritability and yawning, and a loss of energy and drive. Some children also experience a ‘peculiar feeling’ which they can’t quite explain. In later life they may associate it with other migrainous symptoms which have only then become obvious – for example, the development of an aura.

Abdominal migraine often disappears by about the age of twelve, and it is not certain whether or not it progresses to common or classical migraine.

Menstrual migraine

Menstrual migraine is defined as a migraine which occurs at the beginning of the period – either on the first two days of the period, or the day before the period starts. It seems to be linked to a drop in oestrogen levels within the body and responds to treatment with hormone replacement therapy (HRT). About one in ten women with migraine experience menstrual migraine.

Other, less frequent, variants of migraine include the following:

Basilar migraine

Basilar migraine occurs mainly in young women, and is often associated with the time of the period. It occurs as a result of disturbances at a low level of the brain, involving a much more generalised upset in the brain’s functioning. Rather than having an aura which affects only part of the body or part of the visual field, in basilar migraine the visual aura can involve the whole field of view. There can be ringing in the ears, dizziness, transient deafness, double vision, weakness on both sides of the body, uncoordination and clumsy speech. There can also be drowsiness which lasts for a number of hours or, briefly, unconsciousness. Although these symptoms are very dramatic they are fully reversible.

Migraine equivalent

This is when the typical aura of migraine is not associated with any headache. Familial hemiplegic migraine

This is a rare form of migraine which is followed by weakness on one side of the body which can last up to a week; some close members of the family often exhibit the same problem. This is the only type of migraine that we believe to be fully hereditary. The tendency to have migraine does run in families, but in a much less specific way than in familial hemiplegic migraine, which may be handed down directly from parent to child.

Ophthalmoplegic migraine

In ophthalmoplegic migraine there is weakness of the muscles that control the movements of the eyes. Double vision is likely to occur, as is a drooping eyelid and a widened pupil.

We’re not sure whether ophthalmoplegic migraine is true migraine at all. For a start, the headaches last a lot longer – often a week or more – than in other types of migraine.

Retinal migraine

In retinal migraine there is either complete blindness in one eye or alternatively a large patch missing from the visual field of one eye. (This is different from the blank spots in classical migraine, in which the blank areas occur in both eyes together.) As there are a number of other diseases that cause blind spots to develop in a single eye, further investigation may be needed to rule out other causes, such as clots in the eye itself.

Migraine with prolonged aura

Sometimes the aura can extend for up to a week. In cases like this there may actually be no headache at all! Although this can be true migraine, it can also indicate other neurological problems and full investigation is usually needed. Some doctors think that migraine with prolonged aura isn’t true migraine at all.

Migraine with sudden aura

Technically this is called migraine with an acute onset aura. Here the migraine develops fully within five minutes of the aura starting. Again, this is rare, and it is important to make sure that there isn’t something else underlying it.