When I have this type of migraine instead of the usual stabbing icepick in the eyeball, it is almost completely visual in nature, except for some interesting occipital pain that happens after. I get a shimmering blindspot near the center of my vision, that expands into a shimmering donut or torus. Like a smoke ring, it continues to expand until it expands outside my field of vision. It is in both eyes, so you know it is not a "floater". Totally freaked the first time it happened, thinking "what fresh hell is this?" Like my other migraines, one just gets used to it after it happens a couple of times. I've had thousands of migraines (not exaggerating, unfortunately), but this kind is still rare for me.
The ice pick one is called a “cluster headache” The scintillating scotoma is the name of the visual phenomena associated with an “ophthalmic migraine“ but it is not the name of the migraine itself A scintillating scotoma can be in either one eye or both. It can be either a ring or a half moon shape The occipital pain is typical for an ophthalmic migraine and it is usually behind the scintillating scotoma by half and hour to an hour
It's kind of interesting to be looking right at something but not recognize it immediately. It's somewhat disorienting when it reaches peripheral vision, where you look at something and see it, then look away and it seems to disappear because normally you'd see it in peripheral vision.
The both eyes (or both whatever) is a good test for whether something is with some sensory organ, or the brain.
This effect sometimes creeps up slowly for me, where for an hour or more I just can't read very easily, though there's no particular blind spot. Once it begins the spot is prominent and is constantly moving and expanding.
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