> My wife is 33 and has had migraine without pain since her teens.
> They've always followed a similar pattern, a short period (2 mins) of
> visual distortion/voids/grey-outs followed by zig-zag lines. They've
> always gone within 30 mins. She would get them say twice/three times
> a month.
> Last Sunday the usual 2 min experience begain and she assumed a
> migraine was coming. This time however, it did not progress to the
> zig-zag lines stage and has stayed with her for the past 8 days. Both
> eyes are affected, but she has a very hard time describing to me
> exactly what she's seeing.
> She is very worried that it has become permanent, as it's never even
> lasted an hour previously. We went to see a Neurologist on Friday (6
> days in) who was very matter of fact and prescribed Topamax, 25mg per
> day rising to 75mg per day in increases of 25mg every third day.
> She took one on Friday night and didn't like the effects, slurred
> speech, memory loss, smelling strong perfume and the need to sketch
> pictures of perfume bottles at 4am. Saturday night she didn't take
> one, but having had no improvement in the visual disturbance she has
> taken one tonight.
> I can't help but feel that this is not a migraine. There are a few
> other interesting factors:
> 1. If she covers one eye and focuses on something, after a few seconds
> she reports that "everything is going dark".
> 2. She had a series of heart attacks at age 13 followed by complex
> surgery. Since the age of 25 she has been taking Bisoprolol beta
> blockers to maintain a good heart rhythm (she developed an irregular
> heart beat at 25 which she still has now).
> 3. She had a funny episode 3 years ago, was sitting on the sofa and
> suddenly didn't know where she was, she said everything went dark.
> Lasted about 2 mins. She has reported having "black-outs" when she
> stands from a sitting position, on and off since then.
> 4. When she was 18, she had a similar visual disturbance to the one
> she's having now, but only for a few hours. When it finished, she
> permanently lost a "slice" from her field of vision in one eye - if
> she reads text now the text just prior to it on the line "vanishes".
> Any ideas? Neuro didn't offer any scans of any kind, I have a nagging
> feeling he was too quick to judge. Would be helpful if somebody else
> has had a history of "normal" painless migraine followed by a very
> long episode like this and come through it.
> Not sure what my next move in, we saw the Neurologist privately, we
> also have a backup NHS referral but they haven't even got in touch yet
> despite me calling with some urgency last Thursday.
> BP is normal apparently. Her field of vision is extremely impaired at
> present.
> Simon