Do you have Visual Migraines?

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I started having them around August of last year. Not too often, maybe one a week for a month, then I'll go a few months before having them again. Probably one a month on average.

But essentially what it is a big red crescent moon thing that blocks my vision for about 10-30 minutes. When I saw the eye doctor, he said it was a visual migraine, and there was nothing wrong with my eyes. He did say that it could be stress related.

Yesterday, I also had some dizziness and numbness in the face to accompany it. But no headache.

Here's a decent idea of what it looks like (although for me, it's red):


Anyone else get this?

Yes, I've had them a lot. I get them with and without the headache. I hate both, and both leave me exhausted/physically weak for 24 hours or so afterwards.

The red sounds weird though. Mine is just like the pic.

Stress, coffee, tiredness, hormone fluctuations (mostly for women) can set them off.

I dunno, maybe it's not red - more like seeing stars, except one big star that's shaped like the moon, constantly flashing. If I had to pick a colour though, I'd say red.

In any case, the eye doctor called it a visual migraine. And the picture, whatever the colour, is a good representation of what I see.

Yes, I get this. I used to get full-on migraines regularly when I went through adolescence, which became mostly only visual as I got older. I'd say it happens about once or twice a month, with a regular migraine only once a year or so, if that. Stress is definitely a factor for me too, and lack of sleep; a shut-down/melt-down can also bring it on (a more extreme version of the stress cause, I suppose.) I don't know if it's unusual for it to start later in life, but my Mum started having them in her 50's (menopause maybe?)

I have what seems like a much milder version of it pretty much constantly, accompanying "visual snow"; in good light, it's barely noticeable, but when the light is very low, it dominates my vision. That's always been present so far as I recall - I can remember lying awake watching the light-show at night from when I was very young.

Yes, I started getting these last year. I found it scary, I was terrified I was going blind, but the optometrist suggested they might be migraines, even though I don't get a headache with them.
Glad to know I'm not the only one.

I used to.
Mine was like a shimmery spot that pixelated my vision.
I haven't had one for a few years now, thankfully.
There was no pain with it, just the vision disturbance.

Yes, I get them. The visual part usually lasts about 30 minutes. Usually they progress to headache, sickness, weakness/heaviness in limbs which lasts for hours and leaves me washed out for days after. Sometimes they don't progress. The last one I had, a couple of weeks ago, didn't.

Yes I have had them since my late teens although they are less frequent now. It often starts with the visual disturbance. Like a low level flashing and then the whole visual field becomes like unique flashing dots and I pretty much loose my vision. I would also describe them as flashing stars but very small and the sheer amount of flashing makes it very discombobulating. I also get numbness in fingers, toes, sometimes down one side of the body and generally within 1-3 hrs a colossal headache and sometimes vomiting. The first few times I lost the ability to grip and couldn't hold anything.

I have been told to take pain killers the moment I feel one setting in and go and lie down in the dark.

Here is is referred to as migraines with aura.

The things that got rid of them completely for me for a very long time (15 years) was acupuncture. Now I can't have acupuncture anymore (live to far away from my acupuncturist) they have returned.

Yes... had them on only three occasions, while I was at work and I don't work now, so it was probably caused by stress. The pic above is a very good representation, but mine had colours in them. They last about 45 minutes and very scary the first time if you don't know what they are.

I used to have them as a teen.

Yes I've had them for a decade or two. Nearest depiction of what I get is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaMvHalPaFg

First time it happened I thought I'd been dazzled by a photocopier I'd been using. Then I thought it might be a brain tumour. Luckily even in those days I was able to find one description of "ocular migraine" on the Web, and it matched my condition so closely that it had to be diagnostic, and I was relieved to find that it wasn't life-threatening. No headaches either.

It begins with a small, shimmering spot near the centre of the field of vision, which is hardly noticeable at first, it's just a slight distortion of that part of the picture. Within a few minutes it expands and becomes more intense, with silvery zigzag lines around it. Mercifully, by the time it's intense enough to seriously interfere with my vision, it's also moved out from the centre and takes the form of a more or less concentric arc that only affects peripheral vision. Within 25 or 30 minutes it's moved out of my field of vision completely. It's a pretty rare event and it happens gradually enough for me to take evasive action if I should happen to be doing anything that it might render dangerous.

^ The luminous colours in that video are a very good match for what I see compared to the earlier "metallic" looking picture. Combine that with the "stars" that elsapelsa spoke of, and it would be very close to my experience. The colours in the video are also very similar to what my "visual snow" is made up from.

Could the "snow" be normal random noise?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau
Maybe autistic people are likely to be more aware of it, so it seems like something's wrong when it's normal. I've also had bubbles in my eye fluid since I was a child, and contact lenses add to the general fog.

^ What I see as "visual snow" is much more dynamic than shown there. For those old enough to remember it, rather like the "snow" that you used to see on a TV that was not tuned to a signal, only in the bright colours noted previously, and with occasional "stars". Within that there are often hints of discrete shapes moving across my field of vision.

However, I do think you are on exactly the right track. The mechanism described of random retinal noise does seem like the most likely explanation, in tandem with possibly a less selective "filter" for the noise signal and the brain's natural tendency to find patterns in things, even when they are not there. I have been caught in several situations where I have had to be led by the hand because it has got dark and there is no lighting, as I really cannot "see through it" in the way that (I assume) my companions were able to. It's also possible that for some reason my retina or brain pathways intrinsically produce more noise, though I don't know what mechanism would have that effect. It's not something that worries me, I just make sure to always have a torch in my bag.

(NB: If this is getting too off-topic, I am happy to start a new one.)

Here is a good image of visual snow.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... l_snow.gif

^ Yes, that's a good visualisation, only the little random "pixels" are coloured for me - mostly red, yellow and green. There's something very "3D" about it too - as if the little dots fill the air (understandably hard to show in a video.)