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Ocular migraines and TMS

A

Artmuzz

Well known member
I have experienced quite a few ocular migraines over the years and they are scary. First time I had them I thought I was going blind which scared me. I was wondering if there is a connection between ocular migraines (migraine aura) and TMS. I watched videos of Dr Sarno talking about TMS and that the brain reduces blood flow to certain parts of the body to cause pain to distract from emotional stress. I was wondering if it's the same thing with ocular migraines where the brain reduces blood flow to the part of the brain that produces vision due to emotional stress hence the reason my vision becomes distorted and my peripheral vision disappears and I see colours spinning.
 
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Sorry you have not gotten any replies. I always have the same problem with mentioning these migraines in questions
about TMS. I have ocular migraines along with many other TMS symptoms and have for a long time. I have been
assured by Dr Schubiner and other Tms experts that the ocular migraine are a very common TMS symptom.
I try to connect what thoughts and emotions are being repressed when they come on. I can usually indenify
fear , rage, or guilt. Hope this helps
Jackie
 
I don't know what an ocular migraine is, but I have often read over many years that migraines are mindbody caused, which means that even those who don't know the term TMS think that they are.
I had bad TMS eye problems; severely dry eyes. The muscles serving my eyes, especially my left eye, used to be very tight.
 
I have had ocular migraines (sometimes called acephalgic migraines) in addition to the usual painful migraines, though the ocular migraines were much less frequent and harder for me to identify the trigger. But both are TMS and mine have gone due to treating them as TMS.
 
I started experiencing ocular migraines in 2015, about six months after the onset of back pain. The first one frightened me also because I had cheek numbness and a burning sensation in left nostril and eye, along with the vision changes (usually flashing jagged edges or geometric shapes). I still experience them periodically. Usually, after a stressful day at work or when I've spent a long time at the computer without a break. I've been able to stop them fairly quickly by darkening the room and closing my eyes for at least 30 minutes. I deep breathe or meditate on something calming while my eyes are closed. I don't fear them like I used to. I just chalk it up to another weird TMS manifestation! I know a lot of people that suffer from extremely painful migraines. I'm thankful mine are more scary than painful.
 
I've experienced two full blown ocular migraines in my life. I'll tell you about them, and you can decide for yourself if they were TMS related.

The first occurred the day after a someone I'd recently been seeing for some time walked into a neighborhood bar with a new fling. Just a few months earlier, a very public social media post they apparently didn't ever intend on me seeing (they were a hot mess with privacy settings) informed me that they had married their "ex" (I found out that they had never actually broken up) behind my back. We stopped seeing each other after that, but I was still heartbroken that night at the bar. The new fling had no idea about the spouse. I woke up the next morning feeling extremely resentful, and when I saw that a pair of my pants and a very expensive winter jacket had been ripped after getting stuck on a bar stool the night before (the last straw), I immediately started seeing flashes of light and geometric patterns. I called my mom to inform her I was going blind, and she said, "Calm down! That's what happens when someone is as stressed out as you have been!"

The second occurred last April after I had a day of hell from nerve pain and was absolutely convinced I was going to lose my job and life. I was completely suicidal. I had taken the day off from work to see a doctor my brother had recommended to me, and by the end of the day I started seeing the familiar flashes of light and geometric patterns. A close family member had just lost some of their vision due to glaucoma, so when I called my mom this time around, she was afraid. "You're going blind?!" I began panicking with her. However, she realized about a minute later that it was an ocular migraine, and gave me the same advice as before. "Calm down! I'll stay on the phone until you relax and can see again!"

Was my individual situation TMS related? 100%. The ocular migraines both happened after very stressful events which included feelings of despair, loss, repressed emotions, anger, confusion, etc. That is TMS in a nutshell.

I can't speak for every singe person who experiences ocular migraines, but I can say without a doubt mine were caused by my emotions.
 
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Thanks for the replies and especially Caulfield's post which confirms to me that it is TMS.

I've noticed every time I feel really stressed I get the spinning colours and patterns and distortion in my vision. The first time it happened I was about to go to sleep and noticed multi coloured snow in my vision with my eyes shut in the dark. I got up and put the light on and my vision was distorted with patterns of colours but it eventually went away and I managed to go back to sleep.

The second time it happened I was in a rush to get back home and it was the anniversary of my mothers death which made me feel very emotional and upset. Once I got back home and sat down and watched television I noticed the dreaded spinning colours and distortion again in my vision. This gave me a panic attack which got me to the emergency room.

I was wired up to a ECG machine and they checked my heart, blood pressure, eyes and pulse but everything was normal and the doctor told me it was just a panic attack and ocular migraine I was experiencing and to take it easy and rest when I got back home.

The worst experience I had with ocular migraine was last year when I got up in the morning in a rush feeling stressed out. I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and I remember looking out the window at the clear blue sky and I noticed a blob in my vision which gradually got bigger until I couldn't see properly. Watching television was impossible because everything was blurred and as if I was looking through broken glass and my peripheral vision was disappearing. I felt uneasy and nauseous and I thought I was going to faint. When I closed my eyes I seen white blobs moving about. This lasted for 30 minutes and I decided to visit my doctor. My doctor tested my vision, blood pressure and pulse but everything seemed fine but he told me to visit my optician to get a detailed examination on my eyes which I did. My opticians tested my eyes and took scans of my retina in case it was a detached retina but they confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my eyes and retina and suggested to me that I suffering from ocular migraines due to stress.

It's amazing what suppressed anger, emotion stress and anxiety can do to the body. This has confirmed to me that this is indeed TMS and through emotional stress the brain temporarily reduced blood flow to the part of my brain that produces vision but because the brain has no nerves that cause pain instead it causes disturbances that affect vision and any other senses the brain the produces.
 
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Artmuzz said:
The worst experience I had with ocular migraine was last year when I got up in the morning in a rush feeling stressed out. I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and I remember looking out the window at the clear blue sky and I noticed a blob in my vision which gradually got bigger until I couldn't see properly. Watching television was impossible because everything was blurred and as if I was looking through broken glass and my peripheral vision was disappearing.
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Glad to hear this was nothing serious; however, it's a good thing you went to the doctor immediately. Anyone reading this who ever gets these symptoms needs to immediately run, not dawdle, to their optometrist or doctor. I had a detached retina 2 years ago. This is a classic symptom of a detached retina. I had the blob in my vision. It is usually a simple procedure to fix, but if you wait for it to go away, you will very likely go blind.
 
EileenS said:
Glad to hear this was nothing serious; however, it's a good thing you went to the doctor immediately. Anyone reading this who ever gets these symptoms needs to immediately run, not dawdle, to their optometrist or doctor. I had a detached retina 2 years ago. This is a classic symptom of a detached retina. I had the blob in my vision. It is usually a simple procedure to fix, but if you wait for it to go away, you will very likely go blind.
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Agreed - it’s always important to make sure nothing is structurally wrong.

Artmuzz, it sounds like your doctors have diagnosed this as stress related. You’re not alone - many of us here have experienced ocular migraines as part of TMS. Ocular migraines can be scarier than hell, but once you beat your fear of the symptoms, it’ll get better.
 
Hi everyone! So glad I found this post! I experienced my first ocular migraine today and it shot my anxiety through the roof!! After freaking out thinking I had a brain tumor, TMS crosses my mind. Any more info on this would be greatly appreciated!!
 
I see my thread has been resurrected.

My take on ocular migraines are that (like TMS reducing blood to other parts of the body) there is reduced blood flow to the part of the brain that deals with vision due to emotional stress. As I mentioned above ocular migraines were responsible for my first panic attack almost 4 years ago that got me rushed to A&E (emergency room). I was told there that it was migraine brought on by anxiety.
 
Hi everyone! I have experienced an ocular migraine before, the very common jagged aura that lasted 15-20 minutes. I experienced something different last night. It is like a jagged flash when I close my right eye but when it's open it's like a shadow. Same shape and place though. I went and had a thorough exam this morning and everything ended up normal. I'm just worried about when it will go away.
 
I am not sure if this is ocular migraine, but sometimes I feel as if somehow a needle came into my right eye! Just a big prick and then residual pain for a while.
 
Fabi said:
I am not sure if this is ocular migraine, but sometimes I feel as if somehow a needle came into my right eye! Just a big prick and then residual pain for a while.
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Fabi, I don't know if that would be considered an ocular migraine, but it doesn't matter what it's called. That sure sounds like tms or, what I like to call it, a muscle spasm, and I take eyesight issues very seriously. I know exactly what that pain is like because I have occasionally had it over the years and got it last week for an instant. Around 1990 when us later baby boomers wore stress and how many antacids we had to chew as a badge of honour, I was getting sharp pain in my right eye and temple so badly and frequently I went to my doctor to find out if I had a brain tumour. After tests were run and I was told it was muscle spasms caused by stress and computer screen time, it quickly faded away.
 
could that be dry eye? I once had a stabbing feeling in my eye and the doc said dry eye -- I started using a wetting drop and never had it again
 
JaneSandyJane said:
could that be dry eye? I once had a stabbing feeling in my eye and the doc said dry eye -- I started using a wetting drop and never had it again
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I have had such severe dry eyes that I underwent several months of dry eye treatments with my eye doctor this spring, but I never found it had any relationship with dry eyes. My eyes aren't dry now, but I got the stabbing eye pain last week. I think mine was related to not taking enough time to relax.
 
EileenS said:
I have had such severe dry eyes that I underwent several months of dry eye treatments with my eye doctor this spring, but I never found it had any relationship with dry eyes. My eyes aren't dry now, but I got the stabbing eye pain last week. I think mine was related to not taking enough time to relax.
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my doctor said that very often, the stabbing symptom is the only symptom of dry eye. good luck and I pray it resolves!!!
 
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