dr. zephyr

[firstfrost]

I love google, and I love -c help. For many reasons, but today's reason is Dr. Zephyr. (Why does my foot hurt in the morning? Google told me that...). Anyway, this afternoon, I was sitting at my desk answering questions, when I started to get these flashing colored triangles in my vision. (If this were a computer game, my HUD would be trying to tell me something like "incoming enemies!", but alas, I don't have one in real life). The small mob of flashing colored triangles formed up, and started marching outward in a line, expanding their perimeter sideways. This was really rather alarming. I've never had flashing triangles before, and so all sorts of perilous, fatal, or just blindness-inducing things started leaping to mind.

So I asked zephyr class help, which, as it knows everything, thought this was "visual migraine", and then, slightly later, "shimmering scotoma". Now, these I can look up on Google in a way that "flashing triangles" is not so helpful. Yes. That. Whew. "Migraine" is just an annoying word, not a terrifying word. And then after that I got a headache, extra-confirming the diagnosis. I've never been so happy to get a headache.

Someone's flash animation of a visual migraine. Mine wasn't this bad. :) http://www.knownjohnson.com/?p=73

Comments

Opthamologist

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

So did you go to the opthamologist?

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was a cool flash animation. Yeah that'd be really freaky if you didn't know it was supposed to be.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes! That's exactly what I had a week or two ago, although mine wasn't as complete - more of a single ribbon than a circle. And about a half hour after it went away came the headache that lasted a day and a half.

Cool.

Visual Migraines

[jaedian.livejournal.com]

I haven't had the visual effects in awhile. THe very first time I got it though was when I was riding my bike from Somerville to campus. Boy was that scary! Riding on the streets of Som/Cam is bad enough, but not being able to see properly is also bad.

The other time I had been working at LSC doing graphic design stuff and I was worried I had inhaled too much of some chemical or other. In retrospect it likely triggered the migraine.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Imagine if you had no access to Dr. Zephyr and had never heard of migraines, and you're driving along the road to Damascus one day, when suddenly the flashy triangles start marching around.