IBS & Migraine Aura

[Hetchins1946]

I'm starting to wonder if my recent IBS-D flare-ups have been connected with concurrent (mild) attacks of Migraine Aura.

Migraine Aura is a series of visual disturbances and may or may not be accompanied by headaches. I don't get the headache, thankfully.

Has anyone else seen this connection or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[BabsyWabsy]

Hi, I sometimes get a migraine aura without headache. As a much younger person, migraines often involved gut issues, but these days, it is just an aura usually.

[ScottishDad]

could be?.

I have had a lotnof migraine recently more than a few a week and as you mentioned it does not always give me the colidascope aura, but I know its there. Recently its like a constant migraine and it does remove once I get the full blown migraine head bounding and the visual display.

I do feel for you, as I know overall IBS is a horrible condition as well as migraines. Could it be linked, yes probanly, as the brain gut connection is disrupted, they say the gut has more brain power than your brain, wo would not be surprised if its linked.

I have good weeks and bad weeks for both, but could be worse, theres always someone else worse off, so I just get on with it.

Good luck. Take Care.

[mal444 in reply to ScottishDad]

I suffer severe ibs with mucus and diarrhea but semi controlled with loperamide.

I get migraines and partial sight loss. Waves or flickering in right eye then clears up after a few hours. Then headache for days.

Maybe it is linked in some way

[Luisa22]

Oh yes, I often get the same. My migraine aura visuals started about 25 years ago but I never felt unwell and they were very rare. I didn't even know what they were. I had a really healthy gut then, and since then, right up to 4 years ago, when I had a migraine aura, and though not unwell immediately, 10 days later felt unwell. Then 3 weeks after that got gut issues for 1 week.

Long story short, I was diagnosed by a neurologist with (his words) "likely migraine phenomena".

The gut issues came back suddenly in early 2020, and was diagnosed with IBS later in 2020, as no clinical stuff was found.

So yeah....I get that. They are connected and they are a bloody nuisance. It appears that my migraine tendency is inherited from my mother. All sorts of things came out of the woodwork when I started digging.

I imagine the migraine phenomena create a serotonin imbalance and that gets the gut, speeding it up when it feels like it.

I can't really trace things to any food intolerances, and believe me, I've tried.

Low FODMAP foods....well some of them have become my staples, and some never suited me, and some high Fodmaps I am absolutely fine on, so the Fodmap diet helped me maybe about 50%? But I am a bit fibre intolerant. (no skins, peels and definitely not too much "make you go" kind of foods!) I get periods when I am just normal.

[Iesgobdafydd]

I've had occasional vision symptoms - multicoloured flecks or short arcs, blank patches once, flickering like strobe lights in the dark with my eyes shut, difficulty keeping my eyes in focus. In my case I think these are caused by problems with the connective tissue round my eyes. I think my IBS, which is now basically cleared up, was caused by distorted connective tissue in the vicinity of my gut.