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03 April 2008

dilated pupils, anyone?

Only recently did I stumble upon a strange phenomenon: I am of the belief that my pupils dilate when I'm having a Migraine attack. Has this happened to anyone else?

Here's a photo of my eyeball taken when I'm feeling fine.









Here's a photo
taken IN THE SAME LIGHT
when I'm in the midst of a Migraine attack
.

14 comments:

Diana Lee said...

You have such pretty eyes!

What an interesting correlation you've identified. I've never noticed whether my pupils react that way, but I'll definitely be checking now.

Anonymous said...

Wow! I agree with Diana about your eyes! This might explain photo-sensitivity! I know my eyes look weird to me in an attack but never looked that closely.
- megan

Sue said...

I'll be checking too. Interesting...

N. Ayad said...

Yes, I've noticed this as well. I mentioned it to an opthomologist. Their response? A shrug. Which, of course means nothing.

rain gem said...

My sister has the exact same thing;

You two should compare notes, could be some meds you both taking.

Anonymous said...

Mine too- and underneath part, where bags would be if/ when I have them gets slightly puffed up. People who see me everyday can tell the difference.

I think it's a blood vessel thing, makes sense, right?

deborah said...

oh ys, my pupils dilate, too. and get very bloodshot, watery, droopy, etc.

Anonymous said...

I just went to my Neurologist this Thursday with the same problem. My left pupil was wayyy larger than the other. It kind of scared me... He got me in the same day to have a CTA-Angiogram to look at the bloodflow and today I had an MRI focused on my optic nerves. Kinda anxious to hear results... Is this normal for migraines??? The dilation went away after about 12 hrs. In that time I had a headache on that side of my head-migraine I presume...Any comments would be great!

Anonymous said...

My pupils dilate when I have a migraine. My husband always says I have "shark eyes" because the pupil gets so big and my eyes look black. They stay that way until the headache subsides.

Anonymous said...

My 10-year old daughter has had something called Cyclic Vomiting Disease, which is also known as abdominal migraine. It's now morphing into headache and stomach migraines and her pupils get huge when she's having one. It looks exactly like your photo. I've got a call into the headache specialist to ask about this...

Anonymous said...

OMG! The exact same thing just happened to me. I went to lunch with a couple of friends and they commented on how large my pupils were.I've never noticed this before nor has anyone ever remarked about this. Funny thing is when I got back to the office I started to get a migraine (which I suffer from regularly. I checked out my pupils in the mirror and they really were huge. So I googled it and found your remark. I think it's spot on and I have actually heard that this can happen.

Anonymous said...

I am so glad I found your blog. I have migraine-associated vertigo (MAV) and woke up today to dilated pupils. This has never happened before and, after looking at the list of causes (mainly poisoning and recent brain injury), I am glad to see your pics. That is exactly how my eyes look right now - very dilated. Now I don't feel like I have to see my doctor this very minute and can wait till tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

I woke up this morning with a terrible migraine. It was worse than usual. I took some excedrin. I needed to check my email and I could not look at the screen. My eyes were throbbing, so I asked my husband to look at them and they were definitely dilated. I had to wear shades in the house for several hours. This was the worst migraine I have had in a long while.

themigrainegirl said...

I *just* realized I never responded to the thirteen comments on this post. So sorry! I don't have any more medical information about the dilation, but my migraines appear normal and the doctor is not alarmed about the pupils.

Thanks for the eyeball compliments, Diana & Megan!

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