Talk:Aura (symptom)

Personal observations

For me, this takes the form of moving patches of blind spots in my vision. They have a sort of silver shine to them. The blind spots make it difficult to read (or to look at things directly), but depending on where the spot is, I can look at things using peripheral vision. They started when I was in 7th grade, and I was told they were optical migraines. They last about 30-60 minutes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 20:17, 25 September 2005‎ (talk) 4.240.69.192

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For me the aura is preceded by a barely noticeable loss of some portions of my vision. Example if I look at someone’s face it seems like they’re missing an eye or some other part of the face, but you can’t really tell what is happening because when you center your vision on that area that is missing everything is normal there. This is somewhat similar to the blind spot in your peripheral vision.

The actual aura will usually come in the last 15 minutes before the headache. This starts to appear right across the center of my vision. The closest I can describe its pulsating appearance is by wetting a cloth and wiping a half-moon shape across a television screen. Then move your head slowly back and forth… I wouldn’t’ recommend doing that you might get shocked though --Trode 21:27, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

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I have epilepsy, and I have three different auras I get... two almost always come together and the other is rare and much more intense. The first two that come together are the feeling of being separated from the body, and smelling something thats not there. I usually smell something burning with a hint of wax, though I have sometimes smelled other things. This usually occurs when I'm laying in bed at night or in the morning when I first wake up. These happen fairly often and are not usually followed by a seizure- most likely because of the medication I take. The other one,that I've only experienced a few times, is the anxiety and fear. It happens generally when I'm feeling calm or happy and suddenly I have a huge rush of adrenaline and my heart pounds like crazy and it really is like complete terror. This one is especially horrible because its a feeling of terror when I know there's nothing that I'm scared about. I try to calm myself, but it doesn't work. Again, this often happens before I fall asleep or right when I wake up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.229.177.199 (talk) 14:02, 11 September 2006

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I get these auras or aurae or whatever sometimes, although I've never had a full-blown migraine. It starts as a small round-ish shape that looks like when you've stared at a light for too long, then it begins to "shimmer" is the only way I can describe it. It slowly gets larger, becoming normal again in the middle with this shimmering "ring" slowly expanding until it eventually leaves my field of vision, and that is that. Come to think of it, I haven't had one of these in years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 04:38, 9 May 2007 (talk) 128.175.46.134

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I only have seizures when waking from sleep and they are very rare (about once a year). Aura's however, are more frequent. A typical Aura for me consists of visual hallucinations of criss cross, grid or checker patters. For example on one occasion I woke to find the walls of my room covered in grid patterns of sea shells. Another time the floor was checkered with Red Vines (Licorice). The daytime aura's that I have experienced have included smelling sulfer, burning rubber or having a feeling that I am about to get hit by a very fast moving bus. Those have never resulted in a seizure. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Propheus (talk • contribs) 05:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

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i have the same problem suffering from years and i have gone to a neuro doctor now i am taking topomac tab daily but i cant see any relief please suggest me some another remedy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.101.63.99 (talk) 11:04, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

i think its an aura

Sometimes, although not exclusive to the onset of a migraine, I have a strange set of symptoms. Typicaly, I find it occurrs immediatly after standing up after sitting for a significant amount of time, I begin to 'hear' a soft heartbeat in my ears, should I remain standing the progresses in 15-30 seconds to a louder pulsation and a pressurized feeling in my head. Should I continue to stand/walk this peaks with the appearance of a tiny black flickering spot in my right visual field (not exclusive to an eye independently, but from both in the same area). This spot grows slowly as the pressure and pulsations subside. The spot becomes more of a blob and I can only describe it as having a grey and translucent shimmering/flickering quality, like 'TV snow' on a channel you dont get. This is temporary but is completely visually obstructive throughout the duration. The 'blob' slowly creeps out of sight, near the end of the visual disturbance I become (very mildly) receptivly aphasic to words in print...I can clearly identify the letters, but am unable to assemble the word, however familiar. At times a migraine follows within 10-20 minutes however, for the first 3 years it was NOT directly related to migraine/headache pain and is not now consistanly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.126.143.127 (talk) 00:33, 1 June 2007

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When I have an aura, I first start to get a weird feeling in my stomach then the feeling in my stomach starts to shake for about 15-30seconds then it's over. I have these auras every single day and can also have them without getting an epileptic attack after it. If i was to count I probably have auras about 25 times a day. I started having epilepsy at the age of eight and had brain surgery when I was seventeen. After my brain surgery I had about two or three seizures but gradually went away. I still remain to have auras. So I'm still on medication. It's very disturbing! I know that in Jesus name God is going to heal me from this!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akuabawaah87 (talk • contribs) 03:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

AHA! This is what it is

Been wondered what I was having for ages! —Preceding unsigned comment added by SGGH (talk • contribs) 17:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought what was happening to me was from maybe having high blood pressure. Now I know for sure I know don't have high blood pressure but migrains. Yay! Not that it's that much better, but hey, that's just my opinion. Rob657 (talk) 04:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)Rob657

Auras

I have epilepsy and my auras preceding a seizure can last for over 4 hours including twitches, blind spots, being light headed, feeling lost and also hallucinations. I just wanted to verify that auras can last for over an hour. 115.69.5.59 (talk) 03:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The aura picture

Thanks to whoever posted that picture. It is almost exactly what I see, except my zig-zag lines are more horizontal and in the upper left. I just got back from the emergency room trying with much difficulty to explain what happened. I thought I might have been having a stroke. Tomorrow, I will take a copy of this picture to my doctor and show him. This has happened to me approximately once a year for approximately 20 years and lasts for about 60 minutes each time. I do not get headaches or seizures with it. I do not know what sets it off. Clangin (talk) 19:03, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Plural?

Is it appropriate to indicate in this article that the plural of aura can be auras or aurae? r3 00:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

What is Samer?

Mentioned in the first para of the article. Gil_mo (talk) 12:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Dead link

The link to the You Tube video is dead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.124.75.215 (talk) 21:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Cleaned up "Other Sensations" section

I just cleaned up the "Other Sensations" section and merged a few duplicate/related/similar items. I hope no one objects? It was becoming a bit of a laundry list and the ad-hoc style made it quite obvious it was the work of many authors. Hopefully it's readable enough now so that people won't just half read it and dump duplicates in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.9.176.129 (talk) 22:19, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Split epilepsy and migraine auras

This article tends to treat migraine and epileptic auras as though they are the same event with different sequel. Epilepsy and migraine may share some pathophysiologic mechanisms and clinical manifestations but are distinct. This problem is inevitable when two similar "things" are combined in one article. In the "examples" section, how does one distinguish symptoms of a migraine aura from a seizure aura? (Zigzag lines are common in migraine aura but very rare in epileptic aura partly because occipital epilepsy is uncommon.)
Epileptic auras are themselves partial seizures. They may spread into a clinical seizure. But persons with epilepsy may experience auras without a clinical seizure occurring. A split epileptic aura article might also cover epileptic prodrome.
Auras should be split to aura (migraine) and aura (epilepsy) to prevent confusion and misinformation. — Box73 (talk) 04:57, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I concur - please split the treatment of migraine auras from epileptic auras. The article is presently rather more confusing than helpful. yoyo (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

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Causes of migraine aura

Having carefully read and re-read the article, I am still none the wiser as to what causes the aura of migraine. I understand that there may have been little quality research in this area; however it is surely reasonable to expect the article to at least address this topic. yoyo (talk) 14:41, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@Yahya Abdal-Aziz:

Actually the researchers have found out quite a lot about how aura of migraine works:

• During the aura event the blood vessels in one part of the brain contract and thus constricts blood flow to that part of the brain. (They have seen this with CT scans or so.) The assumption is that it then is the lack of oxygen that causes that part of the brain to malfunction. I have myself tested this many times. During an attack: If I lay down on the floor and put my legs on the bed thus causing higher blood pressure in my head and thus better blood circulation the symptoms disappears or weakens immediately. But if I sit up again the symptoms are back immediately. For instance, when I get blind spots in the middle of the eyes and thus can't read, I can simply lay down with my legs high, and then I can read fine.
• Depending on where in the brain you get blood vessel constriction, you can get very different symptoms. Sometimes we loose brain functions we didn't even knew we had, it can be really interesting. For some of us it can affect the brain centre that regulates the enzymes for the stomach and intestines and then if we eat some certain things we get stomach pain and a runny stomach since we can't break down that food properly.
• Now for the scary part: If you get blood vessel constriction in the brain centre that regulates breathing or heart rhythm you die. According to my neurology doctor they assume a handful of people per year die that way here in my country (Sweden, 10 million inhabitants). They don't know how many since they would not find any cause of death during autopsies of such patients. But don't worry about that, it is one of the quickest and nicest ways to die. And there's nothing you can do about it anyway.

The scientists have found out much more:

• People with migraine aura are sensitive to one of the stress hormones (not adrenaline/epinephrine, it is one of the others, I don't remember which one). If they inject that hormone in a normal person that person just gets a bit more "awake", kind of like caffeine or adrenaline. But if they inject that hormone in people that gets auras they immediately get constriction of the blood vessels somewhere in the brain and thus get an aura attack.
• When people with aura migraine are subjected to the things that they know cause their auras, then usually the levels of that stress hormone raises quickly. (They measured that in blood samples.) The same things often also raises the levels of that hormone in many "normal" people, but they don't get an aura attack since they are not sensitive to that hormone.

There are still some things that are unclear:

• They don't know why we get blood vessel constriction from that hormone. That is, they don't know why we are sensitive to that hormone.
• They don't know why the levels of that hormone raises in some people from some causes. For instance why some people produce that hormone when they eat certain food stuffs. As I mentioned above, even many "normal" people produce that hormone when eating the same stuff, but they don't get the aura attacks. (And this can be foods you like, so it's not about "Yuck, I don't like this so I get stressed".) But with some other things like stroboscopic lights then pretty much all people get stress hormones and the reason why is pretty well understood.
• There seems to be cases where we are sensitive to some things (say a food stuff), that is we get blood vessel constriction and aura attacks from it, but we don't get the stress hormone from that thing. So there might be some other mechanism too. But the stress hormone mechanism seems to be the most common.

And here's some more stuff:

• A typical patient get blood vessel constriction in their brain (and thus aura) for about one hour. About twenty minutes before that ends then the blood vessels outside the skull relaxes and gives you the typical migraine headache. When the aura has ended you can use caffeine to constrict the blood vessels outside the skull and thus reduce the migraine headache. But beware: If you take the caffeine before the constriction inside the brain ends you cause more constriction which makes the aura more severe, and that can prolong the aura and also make the following migraine headache more severe. So a safer bet is to not use caffeine and instead use headache pills. (But check the pill contents, some headache pills contain caffeine since caffeine helps against the most common headache types. See more about caffeine and headaches further down in this comment.)
• Some patients don't get the following relaxation of blood vessels outside the skull (or get it to a lesser extent) and thus don't get the following migraine headache. And some patients get several aura attacks in a row. That is, the constriction inside the brain jumps around: For instance one hour in the hearing centre (causing weird noises or tinnitus), then one hour in the visual centre (seeing dots or lines, or getting blind spots), then one or more hours in the speech centre causing stuttering or total loss of speech ability (the wrong sounds come out the mouth, no real words, sounds really funny), and so on. This can go on for whole days or more in some patients.
• If you get angry during the aura it causes more stress hormone, thus more blood vessel constriction, thus more aura, and also makes the following migraine headache more severe.
• About 30% of the population in my country (Sweden) gets aura some time in their life. I assume it is the same in the rest of the world.
• They say that people that had epilepsy as a child and then "grew out of it" tend to get aura as grown ups. But I am not sure this is true, since 30% of the population gets it anyway, so it might be a research bias.
• I usually don't get the headaches, just the aura events. But if I fall asleep while having an aura event (or I get one while I sleep) I get aura and migraine for much of the next day. So for me it is best to stay awake until the aura is gone and then go to bed. I don't know if this is true for other patients.
• And since I mentioned caffeine and headaches: (This is not about aura.) Caffeine helps against many of the common headaches, but makes some worse. So before you use coffee test yourself: Do the "fighter pilot contraction" and see if the headache feels better or worse during the contraction. If it feels better then use the caffeine, if it feels worse then DON'T use the caffeine, then use headache pills. The fighter pilot contraction is similar to the push women learns when giving birth. You can do this while sitting or standing up, it just takes some seconds. Take a breath (that is fill your lungs with air), it doesn't have to be a very big breath but bigger might give a stronger result, then close your throat, then contract the upper part of the stomach/belly, kind of like during a sit-up/crunch. Remember to clench your butt too, otherwise you might soil yourself while doing it. If you do it right you will feel your blood pressure raising in your face (some people even get a red face while doing it) and in your head. Usually you will notice a big difference in the headache while you are holding the stomach contraction. So again: Less headache during the contraction, coffee will help. More headache during the contraction, coffee will make the headache worse.

My main sources to all this is the Swedish government pharmacy news magazine. The magazine is freely available to customers at the pharmacies. Usually they go through what we know about some common disease or syndrome in each issue. I am sorry I don't remember which issues had the aura migraine articles. (I read about it both in the 1990's and the 2000's.) My other source is my neurology doctor that verified the things I had read and added some more details.

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:54, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, @David Göthberg! Now to try to find some reliable sources for all of that info, so we can improve the article with it. yoyo (talk) 09:23, 10 July 2022 (UTC)