Aura Migraines/AFIB

I got an Aura Migraine last night and I had AF yesterday, wondering if any connection. Aura migraine headache is sort of a chemical or electrical wave that moves across the brain’s visual cortex. AF is an electrical connection, so both are electrical problems, I guess I am just charged. Wondering if there is something that is triggering these electrical problems. Years ago I got an Aura migraine only once or twice a year and no AF then. I am getting more Aura Migraines and of course AF, could there be something to this, is there a connection, I am beginning to think there is. As I recall there were a couple of people that got Aura Migraines and had AF, any thoughts?

Liz

I have had both but never near each other in time. The migraines were occasional and I have had none since I began cardizem and propafenone. i was also curious if there was some relation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2019 09:42PM by JDfiB.

I was wondering is the Propafenone could be causing my Aura Migraines, I took a little extra propafenone last night and chewed it. It is nasty chewing it but it gets in the blood stream faster that way. I got the Aura in the morning.

Liz

I had middle-aged ocular migraine onset in my 40s, before ablation and arrhythmia diagnoses, but likely had AFIB events at the time. After a couple of years they essentially disappeared. They returned with a vengeance after 2 ablations, and then again (months) after the Watchman implant. IIRC Natale believes they could be related to the transeptal puncture. I believe I've also seen that they could be foreshadowing a possible future event, but I don't believe there's a lot of science to back it up. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Mine go away for weeks or months, then will return and occur again 4 or 5 times in a week to 10 days. There doesn't seem to be a lot of consensus regarding them that I am aware.

<[n.neurology.org]

"Conclusions Migraine with aura was associated with increased risk of incident AF. "

George:

I got an Aura Migraine in my late teens, I had gone on a stupid diet for about 2 days and then it hit me. I never got a lot of them throughout the years but did get a few, it appeared to me as something I took (like certain kinds of supplements) that I might get one. I have noticed that I have gotten an aura occasionally when I had AF, not everytime however. I didn't get any AF all last summer and I didn't get any Auras as well, there is definitely an association. My mother had AF and also had some Aura Migraines. So if a person got a successful ablation would the Aura Migraines cease? If I had known years ago that there was a connection, I think I would have gotten an ablation.

Thanks for the read

Liz

I have had the vision problem associated with this but not the painful headaches. Is this still related to AF?

I thought these were called "Ocular Migraines". I've had them before, a long time ago when I did not have afib. Of course, I got afib years later, but the ocular migraines never re-appeared.

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Ghost
I thought these were called "Ocular Migraines". I've had them before, a long time ago when I did not have afib. Of course, I got afib years later, but the ocular migraines never re-appeared.

Yes, that is my exact story. I was wondering if they were controlled by the medication for AF or not related at all. Havent had them for a long while which is fine because AF is enough

I had headaches fairly often until I had my first (and only, cross your fingers) Afib event. I don't know if they were all migraine, tension or what. But, I have not had a headache in over 6 months. I figure it has something to do with the beta blocker I am taking. If that's the case, that's the only good thing about Afib .

You can probably find my old posts. I suffered my 1st what I now know as a Migraine with Aura one week after my 1st ablation. I was never even a headache guy before. As I sat there losing my vision I was sure I was having a stroke. Went straight to ER, got diagnosed. They got progressively worse over the years.

4 years ago or so, 3 failed ablations, and 1 successful one with Dr. natale almost 2 years ago I am now exploring various drugs to control the migraines. The visual auras remain freaky to this day but you learn to accept them like anything you don't want I suppose. Not sure before I suffered true migraine I would have known what people meant when they had one and just how much they knock you out.

They never stopped and no choice at this point given the frequency, brain MRI's, multiple neurologists, ophthalmologists, nutrition, nothing mattered.

So do I think there is a link to ablation, absolutely. What and why it affects some and not others, no clue. I'll take them over permanent afib and heart failure though.

I experienced my first migraine aura in 2015 a few days after an ablation. No headache, just the visual aura. Never having heard of it at the time, it scared me a bit but I asked Dr. Google and found the answer pretty quickly complete with an artist's rendition of what it looks like, which matched it perfectly. It resolved within about 20 minutes so I let it go. It never happened again until 3 years later, a few months after my Watchman procedure in 2018. Since then I've experienced it a few more times, and they've gotten shorter with each instance, now lasting maybe 5 minutes. I'm prone to go with Natale's suspicion that they're related to septal puncture. That's the only thing I can think of that correlates with all my experiences of them.

But as long as the headache doesn't come with it and the afib doesn't return, I'm fine with a few minutes of pretty colors.

Interesting. How does a trans-septal puncture have neurological effects? Does it fail to heal, thus allowing deoxygenated blood to cross over into the left side of the heart and create a mild hypoxia in the brain?

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wolfpack
Interesting. How does a trans-septal puncture have neurological effects? Does it fail to heal, thus allowing deoxygenated blood to cross over into the left side of the heart and create a mild hypoxia in the brain?

Don't know how a trans-septal puncture relates to a PFO <[americanheadachesociety.org] but there appears to be an association between aura migraines and PFO's (Patent Foramen Ovale), which you are born with. I know that PFO's also can increase the risk of stroke in the brain as a clot from elsewhere in the body can get to the brain through the opening.

The TEE they did following my Watchman procedure found evidence of a PFO. I had several TEEs prior to that, none of which detected a PFO, so it seems likely to me that the trans-septal puncture for the Watchman was responsible. It is an unusually large catheter, after all. Will it heal? I think probably so and I'll find out in August when they do another TEE. If trans-septal puncture is responsible, I would suspect the reason is that it's allowing micro-clots to pass into the arterial circulation that would normally be filtered out by the lungs, and those produce the auras. But that's just pure speculation on my part.

I and many others have no PFO at least not after it heals after ablation procedure. Yet Auras and headaches remain. Given we know some of us have a genetic predisposition for AFIB and it would not surprise me that we are genetically prone to Migraines as well. How all those genes interact and affect one another no one really knows, we are only at the infancy of understanding the relationship there.

The Aura is generally accepted at this point as a slow moving electrical change across the visual cortex. In another 10 years a different theory may exist of course. What causes said slow moving electrical change is open to debate and how an ablation fits into that even further muddies the waters.

I accept at this point the ablations fixed my afib and left me with this (maybe, maybe not?) and will probably be 6 ft. under before anyone knows why.

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2019 01:01PM by Fibrillator.

Interesting topic. This is my first post here though some of you may recognize from other Afib forums. I have had Afib for 9 years but haven’t yet had ablation. So far it has been controlled with flecainide. I have had auras without headaches for about 30 years. I am about to have a trans catheter valve fix (MitraClip) and it will require a trans-septal puncture so it will be interesting to see if this affects my aura frequency. Incidentally, the valve problem was discovered through as echo that was done in preparation for an ablation with Natale. So another trans-septal puncture is in my future when I finally get the ablation done.

The auras are just annoying but I’d hate to end up with migraines accompanying them.

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Carey
The TEE they did following my Watchman procedure found evidence of a PFO.

As did mine.

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Carey
I had several TEEs prior to that, none of which detected a PFO.

Ditto.

I did have quite infrequent ocular migraines with aura before I ever had an ablation, but not like I do now. My very first migraine with aura left me so visually impaired for about 90 minutes I had difficulty walking and was stranded in my car in a parking lot.

Now Iget the tint aura blip that pulses and grows out of my field of vision over a 15-30 minute time frame, followed by a low grade headache.

Interesting thread.

I’ve had many aura migraines, for over 50 years since my teens, as has my son, now 28, since his teens. We were both always heavy consumers of milk (and therefore calcium). Since I have slashed my Ca intake to eliminate my Afib (as per my website carrafibdietinfo.com and a few posts on this site), my migraines have plummeted and the rare ones I now have are tiny compared to the past : the aura appears and then disappears after about 20 minutes but there is zero headache, or nausea, or numbness in various extremities (and even mental confusion), all of which routinely accompanied migraines previously (in varying degrees and combinations).

My son, although only 28, gets ectopic beats (but not yet, thankfully, Afib). He too, noting the warning signs, has slashed his Ca intake to levels more typical throughout human evolution (until recent centuries) and guess what : virtually eliminated both his ectopic beats and his migraines!!

So, yes : there is a strong connection between afib and migraines, I’m sure, and it lies in calcium metabolism – but that is a complex business (involving Vitamin D, Parathyroid Hormone, magnesium, and several other players) as I’ve written about before.

PS: I haven't looked for published material, but I believe that it's not completely new to link migraines to issues related to calcium and magnesium (which of course are closely entwined in their physical effects, due to their considerable similarities at a fundamental chemical level).

Same experience as SteveCarr. Lowered Ca intake (completely eliminated dairy) and AF and aura migraine w/o headache are gone for nearly 2 years. And there is evidence of the connection in the literature.

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SteveCarr
Interesting thread.

Since I have slashed my Ca intake to eliminate my Afib (as per my website carrafibdietinfo.com and a few posts on this site)

I had not seen your research regarding Ca. Thanks for posting the link here in this thread. There is so much useful information.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2019 10:30PM by JDfiB.