When does this nightmare end?
Posted , 12 users are following.
I am beginning to scare myself by Googling symptoms, but I am worried about some vision problems I am currently having. Since starting the menopause 12 years ago I have had ocular migraines (where a line of flashing lights move across the eye), but they were many months apart. I read that they can be hormonal and/or caused by similar triggers to normal migraines. I can now get up to four a week, but recently I have also had another type of eye problem, with flashing lines in the left eye peripheral vision, and then I had a funny dizzy spell where I felt everything go blurred for a few seconds and my head felt really strange. I had one of these episodes about 18 months ago and thought it was a one-off, but this second one now has me quite worried.
I saw an ophthalmologist about the flashes, who said there was no detached retina, but recommended I see a neurologist. I saw one last week and he referred me for a CT scan but that was then cancelled as the machine broke! My sister has had similar ocular migraines over the years, and also had these dizzy spells, then she had a stroke last year, so now I am really concerned. I am currently taking beta blockers (for palpitations/irregular heartbeats) and vision problems are one of the side effects listed, so now I am not sure whether it is the tablets, menopause, or whether I am about to have a stroke!
Can anyone relate to these symptoms?
3 likes, 20 replies
pinkcatfairy DH59
Posted
Hi
Im three years post menopause and in the beginning i started to get light sensitivity and blurry vision and then about two years ago I started to get migraine auras, no migraine, perhaps sometimes an over eye pain . I have never suffered these auras before ( they are zig zags, sometimes a c shape, sometimes starts will blind spot which goes on to zig zags. I had these episodes for a while and then they stopped, only to start up again last year. I kept a diary and i was having them monthly, sometimes as many as six, sometimes just one. Light would sometimes trigger them, caffeine or wine but then another time, these triggers wouldn't set them off. My dad said that he has had them for twenty odd years (on and off) which i never knew and he's 82,now. I believe they can be hereditary. My 26 year old daughter had her first one the other day. My husband has had one in the past but no more, i was abit concerned at the frequency of mine but when reading on the menopause forum, they seem pretty common. I have had a mri and all seems well. I will say, i suffer with dry eyes and watery eyes and now have eye drops, since using the drops the auras have ceased, a coincidence, i dont know!