Yesterday I experienced a strange sensation that has never happened to me before. Randomly and quite suddenly I began to experience difficulty with my vision. A strange spot appeared in my left visual field similar to what happens when you stare at a bright light for too long.

Source

I was having a hard time reading words and I felt a mild tingling sensation in my face. I became worried that I was having a stroke though I have no idea what the symptoms of a stroke are. I guess the worst case scenario came to mind. I decided to lean forward and put my head between my legs. My understanding is that people who feel like they are going to pass out are told to put their head between their legs to get the blood flow back to their brain. A colleague came into the room at that point and asked me if I was ok. I found it mildly difficult to talk and I felt a growing sense of disorientation. When I looked at my colleague I found it difficult to see his face clearly. I could see his eyes but the bottom portion of his face and mouth appeared squished together. I laid down on a couch for a bit and waited for everything to pass, which it did after about 10-15 minutes. I was starving after it happened and had almost no energy which made me think it was due to low blood sugar or something of that nature. I also had a mild headache in the back of my head for the remainder of the evening.

Ocular Migraine

---

Source

After talking to a few people I was told that it was probably an ocular migraine. Ocular migraines are temporary visual disturbances that are believed to be mostly harmless. They can come on fast but generally only last for about 20-30 minutes.

Visual symptoms can include blind spots in one’s vision, the sensation of flickering lights or wavy zig-zaging lines in ones field of vision (which is what I experienced).

From what I was able to gather from researching online, is that these types of migraines can be triggered by almost anything: sounds, sights, smells, stress the weather and so on. It also seems that not a lot is known about their cause other than they typically begin for individuals in their 30’s and 40’s and they tend to be more prevalent in women. There also seems to be a genetic component to them in that a family history of migraines increases their chance of occurring.

Source

Any thoughts on this? Have you ever experienced an ocular migraine or something similar?

Thanks For Reading

---