wdh@faron.UUCP (Dale Hall) (02/26/86)
I have a question regarding whether the following lead to a preliminary diagnosis of migraine; I'm submitting to the net for two reasons: first, the apparently large number of readers with either proper academic back- grounds or (in)direct experience with a wide variety of medical disorders; second, my inability to consult with a physician directly (as the patient --my daughter-- is located in Minnesota, making such a consultation awkward, to say the least). The background: My 13 year-old daughter ordinarily enjoys excellent health. About a month ago, she told me of an episode which she had involving a brief clouding of her vision (her field of vision grew fuzzy and faded), after which she was unable to retrieve a number of words in her vocabulary. Her example was telling her friend: "it's kind of like a Kleenex, only more permanent" to get the idea of a hand- kerchief across. The words involved were of the everyday variety, and she was aware of knowing a word to express what she wanted to say, only having this "addressee unknown" experience when she tried to recall the word. The episode lasted probably around an hour; the next day, she went to a physician who did the standard stuff: reflexes (knee,elbow,ankle), pupil dilation, coordination checks, plus a blood test. The word was that she had had a migraine. The episode was repeated last week, during a case of the flu; this time, she noticed the visual effect was limited to her right side, but both eyes (or was it just her right eye? I think both eyes). The vanishing words business involved the topic of conversation at the time -- this time, she had an idea of some of the letters of the words she wanted, but couldn't fit them into a word. This episode lasted between ten and twenty minutes. Other than being totally unfamiliar with this sort of memory disruption as being characteristic of migraines, with the brief time spans involved, she does have the "bright, perfectionist" personality that I've seen associated with persons who have migraines. However, she remarked that there wasn't a headache of any sort involved. The visual field effects also make the diag- nosis appear reasonable, except that I had such effects as a teenager, mainly associated with standing abruptly, and the effect always subsided after a few seconds. I always interpreted this as being a transient lowering of cranial blood pressure resulting from the rapid change of posture. Anyhow, I outgrew this by my early twenties. Needless to say, I'm concerned; if this is within normal ranges for migraines, that's one thing. However, the real concern is that the diagnosis was just a quick and easy interpretation of the visual portion of these events, and that there could be something more going on. Does anyone have any ideas or related experiences to shed some light on this? Dale Hall
ran@ho95e.UUCP (RANeinast) (02/27/86)
> My 13 year-old daughter ordinarily enjoys excellent health. About > a month ago, she told me of an episode which she had involving a > brief clouding of her vision (her field of vision grew fuzzy and > faded), after which she was unable to retrieve a number of words > in her vocabulary. Her example was telling her friend: "it's kind > . . . > > Dale Hall This reminds me of a problem my brother had starting at about the age of 10. He would get what he would call "white-outs", which were kind of like looking into a snowstorm. Shortly after the start of the white-out, he would get super-screaming migraines. This first happened while we were camping in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, and lasted for over 2 years. Among the things he had to endure: + A brain scan at UCLA (this was in 1966, so they used radioactive dye and X-rays) that found absolutely nothing. + Extremely potent pain-killers (Darvon was just the mildest). + A child psychologist (named Dr. Sugar, of all things), who managed to figure out that the migraines were caused because my brother hated our grandmother (who lived with us at the time). However, he didn't get better. In fact, after one session, my brother told my parents how he out-stubborned the doctor. My brother didn't feel like talking, and the doctor decided to sit there at not talk if my brother wouldn't (at $50 per half hour). Well, that was the end of that. My brother also had hay-fever. One time he took an anti-histamine pill just as he felt a migraine coming on, and poof! went the migraine. Yup, you've get it. It was as allergic migraine. From then on, no problem. I don't want you to think that I'm claiming that this is your daughter's problem, but at least make sure the doctors consider it as a possibility. -- ". . . and shun the frumious Bandersnatch." Robert Neinast (ihnp4!ho95c!ran) AT&T-Bell Labs