Well about the same time as the eye changes I was getting migraines with aura once a day for about a week ....I have been having migraines with aura off and on for about 20 years...I used put my migraines with aura down to Chocolate but I had been off chocolate for months so I thought it might be too much salt ...so I stopped adding salt to my food ...and I loved my salt...and within a few days my migraines stopped and after a week my eyes had returned to their normal state...so it was too much salt ... sodium poisoning.....have to say I never linked my migraines with aura to too much salt before....I did like my salt though....but no more if it causes all those problems and more....and my dizziness has gone as well....
Jimmy Stewart ... presented the following explanation :
I suffer very irregular visual disturbance migraines, maybe once per month or two, but made more regular by stress. Blanked out areas vision, zig-zag lines and a slightly distant feeling. It lasts maybe 20 minutes then gone, no headaches usually, ever. I have never found a causation for it.
I also suffered dizziness for the past couple of years. When I looked up, when I was busy carrying things back and fourth with lots of turning around. I noted my BP suddenly falling at those times I became dizzy. That was until a couple of months ago when they put me on a bi-annual IV iron, with an iron promotion monthly jab.
The dizziness has almost gone and my BP is remaining much more stable and I have more energy.
My acephalgic aura disappeared, after I got my blood pressure under control.
I was getting aura for ten minutes, back when my pressure was 200 over 100. As soon as I got on some meds, the aura stopped. I haven't had an aura since.
The doctors have a variety of stupid advice:
1) "Just ignore it" said one doctor. I love turnips, but would you like that person for a doctor ?
2) "If it continues, see a neurologist" said the other. I award points for that answer.
At least at the hospital eye clinic, the intern ran off and consulted a fully-fledged doctor, to get the name of the condition right.
But BP is enough to set it off. There are probably lots of reasons, but that was my reason.
And as for blood pressure, high BP is like that radiator hose in your car, that bursts when it gets old. My grandmother died from an event like that, high blood pressure ripping apart some blood vessel and she bled out internally. That's called "dissection", when part of your plumbing bursts and blood goes places it's not supposed to.
If you don't have a BP machine, see if a doctors clinic will check it for you. Tell them your aura symptoms so they'll take you seriously. My clinic stopped doing BP cuffs in the COVID era, which is why they may hesitate to measure you (means cleaning off the cuff, lazy staff, etc).
If you're a "strict stay at home, no risks for me thanks" person, just order a BP machine and have it delivered. The little battery machines are relatively cheap. I could afford one. I check BP twice a day and log it. The drug store had three prices for them. It's nice if you can examine the cuff in advance, as some cuffs are better than others, but in the COVID era, just getting the machine is a start. The cuff plugs in via an air hose, and if there were standards, you could get a replacement cuff and plug in. The plug in, is just a compression fit.
The machine uses a colour code. If it's "red", you're not lookin good. If it's "yellow", you still need to fix it, but you're not going to die instantly. It's unlikely to be "green" in your case - I'm on meds and mine is usually "yellow". When summer comes and I get outdoors, it goes back to "green". But stuffed in the house in winter, "yellow" is more common.
If your BP is high enough, your life expectancy can be as short as two hours. BP can kill. My boss at work had to hurry off to hospital, because he was way way up there, and close to frying.
Before they can write a script for meds, you need a blood test for kidney function. At the hospital, when they did that test, the results came back in ten to fifteen minutes or so, making it easy for the doctor to write me a script and boot me out the door. That can provide a little relief until your regular clinic visit. I was put on a diuretic, until I could see a doctor. And that's why they check your kidneys aren't marginal, as the diuretic is the first drug they reach for.
Same here. Had a particular spate of it during summer on Sunday mornings while reading in bed. So I wondered if it was posture related (restricting blood flow?), or something to do with the bright light at the window.
I used to suffer with painful migraines as a child but they gave over in my teenage years where i'd get the aura migraines instead. I'd lose the power of coherent speech too when I was younger, I'd get the visual disturbance and then listen to myself talking absolute waffle.
I had a consultation, + an MRI where they discovered I'd had a minor stroke long ago, plus a narrowed artery to one side of my face, so they wanted my BP to not fall too low.
All good advice and monitors are not expensive in the great scheme of things. I bought one from Argos, which uses bluetooth to send its recorded BP to my Iphone. That makes it easy to forward them on to the medics if they ask for them, which they do quite regularly.
I don't make a point of checking it regularly, rather I check it if I have concerns, or a change in meds, or during the week before an appointment - because they always ask for it.
I don't do the measurement at a regular time of day, rather I take several BP checks at random times, with a note of what I was doing at the time. That a result of trying to collate why I was going dizzy and my BP falling under certain circumstances.
You'd think if you overdid it on salt, there's be some reaction.
I don't know about your doctor, but mine seem to have a fixation on kidney function.
Yet when the blood report shows creatinine at limit, I asked the doctor and he tells my "you've got lots of rope left". But that doesn't stop them from sending me on another blood test.
High blood pressure destroys kidneys and they don't regenerate like the liver.
There are multiple stages of kidney failure and I would expect if you keep your blood pressure within sensible limits your kidneys will outlive their usefulness.
I had consistent similar symptoms after I had eaten and got hot following exercise.
One explanation from a consultant is that nerve sheaths lose their insulation with temperature and so short to their neighbours. I have no idea if this is actually true and only heard this from one source, albeit a seemingly respectable one.
I can be dizzy but only after being sedantry for a while and then doing something like running up some stairs.
If you think those are bad: My wife started suffering dizzy spells and thinking that things in her peripheral vision were coming at her.
She couldn't drive becaus eof it, couldn't travel on public transport and couldn't take a taxi or get a lift (she could with me, because I was ready for and to ignore the screams that something was about to hit us as we passed sideroads!) A bit of a problem for a community nurse!
She was bounced from consultant to consultant, with numerous tests and eventually, after two years, got a diagnosis and was prescribed anti-convulsion tablets, that pretty well returned her to normal.
However, we still have a letter from one of the consultants (at about the 18 month mark), following up two appointments she'd had with him and confirming his recommendation ... that although he didn't know the cause, he could take the symptoms away by blinding her, permanently, in her left eye!
Aortic aneurysm. Can be repaired if caught early enough. A dissecting aneurysm is where the inner lining of the aorta comes away from the main 'tube' and blood gets into the void. Also a surgical emergency.
Everyone (?males) at age 60-ish gets a checkup for this at their GP in the UK.
People who did a lot of manual work, digging trenches etc might be more at risk from this as they age.
As you age your blood vessels become less elastic so get stressed more every time the heart pumps.
just wish I could feel thirsty ...it is very annoying and I can dehidrate myself no problem....get a slurping feeling in my heart and headaches when I do it...most annoying....have to forrce a set amount od water down me every day or I dehidrate very easily......Oh to be thirsty again ! ...
I did always suffer with that, I think it's quite normal - your body needs time to prepare for action, from a relaxed state.
This dizziness was quite different, though the same feeling of about to pass out - looking up at shelves at home or in shops, wondering round the isles in stores etc. all would triggering and then I would need to lean on something, or sit until it passed.
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