Ocular migraine overview

Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm Post in Eye Diseases

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

Those signs include noticeable disruption of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or 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 non-ophthalmic migraine phenomenons, which may appear in crossed eyes, numb fingertips, tongue or bottom lip.

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 the episode. This information can help the doctor determine the tendency of the disease: either worsening or relieving.

In addition, there are possibly some triggers of migraine episodes that can be found through a log. Stress and fatigue can trigger episodes in susceptible patients, and sometimes heavy dieting is also suspected. Some research studies show that vitamin B is helpful in reducing migraine frequencies.