Migraines: More than 28 million Americans — three times more women than men — suffer from migraine headaches, a type of headache that's often severe. In some cases, these painful headaches are preceded or accompanied by a sensory warning sign (aura), such as flashes of light, blind spots or tingling in your arm or leg. A migraine headache is also often accompanied by other signs and symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Migraine pain can be excruciating and may incapacitate you for hours or even days. Many times they will involve the visual system.

Eye Migraines: A universal term used to describe a group of different types of migraine, including ocular migraines, ophthalmic migraines, a type of silent or acephalgic migraine, and even ophthalmoplegic migraines. Pain is only one possible symptom of migraine. Other symptoms include nausea, congestion and visual symptoms. Silent migraine or acephalgic migraine is migraine without the headache.

Ocular migraine: Occurs repeatedly, though not usually in a regular pattern. You could go days or years between attacks. Prominent researchers have noted that the cause of ocular migraines isn't clearly understood, but are thought to be due to abnormal stimulation of nerve cells (neurons) at the back of the brain. Seeing a doctor or ophthalmologist is important to ensure that something more serious is not occurring, and especially important if symptoms are accompanied by headache.

Ophthalmic migraine: Same symptoms as the ocular migraine, but occurs at the height of the migraine, and most often occur in young men. Sometimes as time progresses the migraine sufferer will lose the headache and end up with an ophthalmic migraine, which is a silent migraine. These are much more common eye migraines.

Ophthalmoplegic migraine: Researchers now believe this is not technically a migraine at all. The headache is usually severe, and is accompanied by weakness in one or more of the eye muscles. Because of the decreased eye movement, you may experience temporary (less than 2 hours) double vision, drooping eyelid, or dilated pupil. Most often this problem is diagnosed in children. It is very important to have a thorough examination if you suspect you may have ophthalmoplegic migraine.

Basilar migraine: These are not strictly “eye migraines”, but the eye symptoms are often obvious and severe. Symptoms include a visual aura, also eye twitching, a graying out visually or even temporary partial blindness, vertigo, and dizziness. This type of migraine is rare.

Visual aura with migraines

Back to Top