Migraine with visual aura has a strong genetic component in my family and we all experience the headache phase before the aura ends. We also sometimes have numbness and weakness on one side of our body that progresses from our thumb to fingers, to hand, to arm, to face, to jaw and then tongue along with nausea and vomiting. We also experience difficulty speaking and considerable dizziness. Two of my 3 siblings and I have all transitioned into chronic migraine as we’ve aged. We have each experienced periods of chronic migraine throughout our lives but after 30+ years each living with migraine, the headaches in each of us have transitioned into chronic migraine (last 5 yrs now for me, age 40 -last 3 yrs for my brother, age 54 -and last 1-2 yrs for my sister, age 51). I am now 1.5 years into Botox treatment and do experience some relief, but my siblings do not receive Botox treatment.

One other thing you may with to consider asking your patients is whether they experience MULTIPLE visual aura phases. This is also common in my family. We sometimes experience visual aura, then the headache begins before the visual aura ends and then ~2 hours later we will experience ANOTHER visual aura at the same time as the headache continues (or it could be the remaining soreness from the headache) and then continued headache and this can repeat itself several times over the course of an 8-12 hour episode. Fortunately, this doesn’t always occur as these are truly horrible headaches when they occur… VERY painful and the nausea and vomiting that accompanies the multiple auras is quite severe.

Thank you for taking the time to read my entry and your helping people with migraine!