@awk You never drink?!

@awk the person version of the Sahara.

@EvilSmoo Oh, does this ACTUALLY not have artificial sweeteners? I was assuming it did, ok, now I’m actually interested.

Edit> Ok, not interested again, it DOES have artificial pois… err sweeteners.

@EvilSmoo And xylitol, which is bad news for many.

@werehatrack I’m not sure about stevia, or various forms of it, but optical migraines are NOT worth the risk of having sweet stuff when I can just add actual sugar.

@EvilSmoo @werehatrack The sad thing is, a whole lot of people don’t even like sweet.

@werehatrack

Migraine aura affecting your vision

Migraine aura is a wave of activity in the brain traveling through the
brain. The location of the wave of activity in the brain determines
the type of aura. The most common type of aura is a visual aura. About
90% of people who have migraine with aura have this type. It’s thought
that auras are usually visual because such a large portion of the
brain processes visual information.

If the wave of activity goes through other areas of the brain such as
the sensory or language centers, then the person would have sensory
(for example, tingling in the tongue, face or arm) or language auras.
The auras usually last for about five minutes to an hour. Aura can
sometimes occur without a headache.

A migraine aura that affects your vision is common. Visual symptoms
don’t last long. A migraine aura involving your vision will affect
both eyes, and you may see:

Flashes of light
Zigzagging patterns
Blind spots
Shimmering spots or stars

These symptoms can temporarily get in the way of certain activities,
such as reading or driving. But migraine with aura isn’t usually
considered serious.

Concerning, but probably not very serious, but it means that I can’t read text until it fades. It’s a very odd effect, independent of either eye. Kind of like you took a thumbnail to an LCD screen in an arc, except the arc starts in the center of my field of vision and expands outward.

Very distracting though, means I can’t do much of anything with vision until it goes away.

And it has COMPLETELY stopped happening since I stopped sweeteners, sooooo…

@EvilSmoo Thank you for this, I’m allergic to red dye and couldn’t find the label to see if it had any.

@EvilSmoo @werehatrack - Interesting!
I get optic migraines - kinetic arcs of shimmering patterns, but they’re more to the sides of my vision and without accompanying headaches. They’re really kind of a cool light show since they don’t last long.
Never thought about artificial sweeteners causing them, I have Ice Chips candy that I get from my dentist’s office which is sweetened with xylitol.

@kdemo @werehatrack I switched to altoids, which is actual sugar.

My thinking is, it’s all the same brain-storm of stimulation, if it happens in the pain center, you get migraines, if it happens in the optical center, you get vision distortion. Maybe it happens in other places as well?

@somf69 And why do you know what that tastes like?

@sagergen it happened to me a long time ago, meh fixed it, then it happened again, and neither i nor they can seem to do anything about it. sad b/c my streaks are much shorter when i have to remember to click on my own.

@catthegreat happened to me last time, too. There was more noise in the forums about it then, but I didn’t see anything in a cursory glance today before I commented so I wondered if I was alone. Who knows

@catthegreat @sagergen I have seen mention that unclicking the email box and then clicking it again may help. It hasn’t happened to me, as I am unsubbed as a matter of preference.