Make an Appointment
Talk to DoctorOverview
A migraine with aura, often known as a classic migraine, is a severe headache that develops after or concurrently with sensory changes known as aura. Flashes of light, blind spots, and other vision alterations as well as tingling in your hand or face can be among these disturbances. This condition can appear 30 to 60 minutes before the onset of a migraine attack or even during one. It’s crucial to understand that not all migraine attacks include an aura.
Common migraine, often known as migraine without aura, receives the same treatments as migraine with aura. The same drugs and self-care techniques used to prevent migraine can also be used to try to avoid migraine with aura.
The migraine aura is unpleasant but not harmful. It can, however, mimic the signs of more severe illnesses like a stroke. Therefore, if you suspect something unusual is happening, it’s crucial to get medical attention.
Symptoms
Temporary visual or other disturbances are among the migraine aura symptoms, which typically appear before other migraine symptoms include severe head pain, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound.
A migraine aura often starts around an hour before head pain does and lasts for less than an hour. Sometimes, especially in those over 50, migraine aura can happen without a headache.
Visual signs and symptoms
The majority of sufferers of migraine with aura experience transient visual disturbances that often begin in the center of the field of vision and extend outward. These could consist of:
- Visual disturbances or loss
- Flashes of light
- Scotomas, or blind spots, are occasionally delineated by geometric patterns.
- Gradually floating zigzag streaks in your visual field
- Seeing stars or shimmering spots
Other disturbances
Other brief disruptions occasionally linked to migraine aura include:
- Problem speaking
- Weakness of the muscles
- Numbness, which frequently manifests as tingling on one side of your face or in one of your hands and may gradually affect a limb.
If you experience any new migraine with aura symptoms, such as momentary visual loss, trouble speaking or understanding, or weakness on one side of your body, consult your doctor right once. A stroke and other serious illnesses must be ruled out by your doctor.
Causes
There is proof that an electrical or chemical pulse that travels across the brain is what causes the migraine aura. The type of symptoms you can encounter depends on the area of the brain where the electrical or chemical wave propagates.
In areas that process sensory inputs, speech centers, or movement control centers, this electrical or chemical wave may manifest. The most frequent sort of aura is a visual aura, which manifests as visual symptoms when an electrical activity wave travels through the visual cortex.
The electrical and chemical waves do not affect the brain and can happen while the nerves are working normally.
Many of the migraine triggers, such as stress, strong lights, specific foods and drugs, getting too much or too little sleep, and menstruation, can also cause migraines with aura.
Risk factors
Although no particular factors appear to enhance the incidence of migraine with aura, those with a family history of migraine appear to experience headaches more frequently overall. Women experience migraines more frequently than men do.
Diagnosis
Based on your signs and symptoms, medical and family history, and a physical examination, your doctor may make the diagnosis of a migraine with aura.
Your doctor may advise some tests to rule out more serious illnesses, such as a transient ischemic attack (TIA), if your aura is not accompanied by head pain.
Assessments may consist of:
- Eye examination. A complete eye examination performed by an ophthalmologist, an expert in eyes, can help rule out eye issues that could be producing visual disturbances.
- Computerized Tomography (CT) scan. Your brain may be seen in great detail from this X-ray procedure.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Your internal organs, including your brain, are depicted in images created during this diagnostic imaging technique.
To rule out any possible brain illnesses that could be the source of your symptoms, your doctor may recommend that you see a neurologist, a physician who specializes in nervous system disorders.
Treatment
Similar to migraine alone, treatment for migraine with aura focuses on reducing migraine pain.
Medications
When administered as soon as the warning signs and symptoms of a migraine aura appear, medications used to treat migraine discomfort function best. Types of drugs that can be used to treat migraines depend on how severe the pain is.
- Pain relievers. Aspirin or ibuprofen are among these over-the-counter or prescription painkillers. These may result in headaches from pharmaceutical overuse if taken too regularly, as well as ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding.
Migraine drug that contains caffeine, aspirin, and acetaminophen may be effective, but often just for treating mild migraine pain.
- Triptans. Because they block the brain’s pain pathways, prescription medications including sumatriptan and rizatriptan are used to treat migraines. They can ease a number of migraine symptoms when taken as pills, injections, or nasal sprays. For people at risk of a heart attack or stroke, they might not be secure.
- Dihydroergotamine. For migraines that often last longer than 24 hours, this medication, which is available as a nasal spray or injection, is best effective when administered soon after the onset of migraine symptoms. The nausea and vomiting that come with migraines may get worse as a side effect.
Avoid dihydroergotamine if you have kidney or liver disease, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, or any of these conditions. - Lasmiditan. This more recent oral tablet has been given the green light to treat migraines with or without aura. Lasmiditan dramatically reduced headache pain during pharmacological studies. People using lasmiditan are advised not to drive or handle machinery for at least eight hours since it can have a sedative effect and cause dizziness.
- Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) antagonists. Oral CGRP antagonists ubrogepant and rimegepant have just been licensed for the treatment of acute migraine in adults, either with or without aura. In clinical studies, medications in this family were superior to placebo in reducing migraine pain and other symptoms such nausea and sensitivity to light and sound two hours after administration.
The usual adverse effects include extreme sleepiness, nausea, and dry mouth. Strong CYP3A4 inhibitor medications shouldn’t be taken with ubrogepant or rimegepant.
- Opioid medications. Narcotic opioid drugs may be useful for migraine sufferers who are unable to take other migraine medications. These are often only used if no other therapies work because they can be quite addictive.
- Anti-nausea drugs. If your migraine with aura is accompanied by nausea and vomiting, these can be helpful. Chlorpromazine, metoclopramide, and prochlorperazine are all anti-nausea medications. These are typically used along with painkillers.
Some of these medicines should not be used while pregnant. Avoid using any of these medications if you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant without first consulting your doctor.
