Aura in the eye, also called as migraine with aura or classic aura refers to a severe headache, which strikes along or after with various sensory disturbances. Here, the disturbances may include blind spots, light flashes, changes in the vision of a patient or tingling in his face or hand.
Migraine with aura or aura in the eye problem may result in throbbing pain or a sensation of pulse severely on a particular side of your head. In addition, sometimes, the problem accompanies vomiting, nausea and extreme sensitivity towards the sound and the light.
Migraine attacks may result in a huge pain for about few hours to 1 or 2 day and may become so much severe that pain disables. Aura or any other warning symptom may take place with or before you face with the headache problem. These include tingling, light flashes and blind spots.
What is Aura in the Eye?
Auras, as mentioned before are symptoms related to a patient’s nervous system. These mainly indicate visual disturbances in the form of waves or light flashes and zigzag vision. Sometimes, auras may be in the form of motor or movement, sensory or sensations, verbal or speech disturbances. In addition, it weakens the body muscles or forces a person to feel as somebody his touching him/her. Each of the symptoms mentioned here starts gradually and forms for several minutes, while lasts for even an hour.
Aura in the eye symptoms include:
- Visual phenomena, which take place in the form of viewing different shapes, light flashes and bright spots, while in some cases, loss of vision
- Sensation of needles and pins in a leg or in an arm
- Numbness or weakness in the face or any particular side of a patient’s body
- Hearing music or noises
- Difficulty in speaking
- Uncontrollable movements and jerks.
What Causes an Aura in the Eye?
Changes in the Brainstem and Trigeminal Nerve Causes an Aura in the Eye
Aura in the eye may takes place mainly because of key changes in the patients’ brainstem and its interaction with a major pathway of pain referred as trigeminal nerve.
Brain Chemical Imbalances Can Cause Aura in the Eye
Imbalances in the chemicals of a human brain, including the serotonin may regulate a severe pain in the nervous system commonly referred as migraine pain. Serotonin levels in the human brain go down at the time of migraine attacks.
This may force trigeminal nerves to release neuropeptides substance that travels to the outer covering of one’s brain i.e. meninges. Each of these procedures leads to migraine pain. Alternatively, CGRP i.e. calcitonin gene-related peptide and other similar types of neurotransmitters may cause migraine pain and aura in the eye in the patients’ eye.
Other Factors
Excluding the factors related to chemical imbalances in human brain, aura in the eye might take place because of following other factors-
Hormonal Variations in Women
Fluctuations take place in the level of estrogen may activate the problem of headache in large number of women. Particularly, women with migraine history usually report the problem of aura in the eye immediately during or before their menstrual cycle, as during that time; there is a significant drop in their estrogen levels. Moreover, a few women may have tendencies to develop the problem of aura in the eye either at the time of pregnancy or during the phase of menopause.
Foods and Beverages
Salty foods, aged cheese and processed foods constituted the prime triggers of aura in the eye. In addition, one can suffer with migraine aura attack because of skipping meals or frequent fasting. On the other side, patients with a habit of drinking wine, alcohol and caffeinated beverages in higher amounts remain at huge risk to migraine problem.
