What causes a positive after-image?

Question

Hello doctor,

I have health anxiety and migraines. I have started seeing after-images quite frequently, especially when inside and looking outside to a road or across the road. I am blinking and seeing a positive after-image for less than a second. This is extremely worrying for me as I am unsure why this is happening. I do not know if this is caused by something else. But, I have had my eyes checked and everything was fine. Could this be symptoms of migraine aura? I have had a sore head for a while now in both temples.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I understand your concerns.

Your symptoms are most likely due to migraine which cause severe headache, mainly on one side that lasts for few hours (up to 72 hours) may be associated with other features like limb numbness, nausea, photophobia, and other different symptoms.

In many cases, migraine is preceded by aura which could be auditory or visual symptoms like the one you described.

The other possible causes include:

Cluster headache (with eye tears).
Glaucoma (with eye pain).
Secondary to more serious conditions.

Please provide me with more details in order to reach the appropriate diagnosis:

Do you have fever or nausea?
Red eye?
Any muscle weakness?
When was the first time you experienced this type of headache?

I suggest:

Medications are required to abort acute attacks and to prevent attacks if frequent.Follow up is required to confirm the diagnosis and to exclude any serious conditions.Neurological assessment is recommended.

For more information consult an internal medicine physician online