Depersonalization and derealization

"O.k., I USUALLY just get the aura, and I've never had a throbbing one sided headache in my life. On the other hand, I get these headaches from hell that last for weeks, a couple of times a year. This last one had an aura that came on during it..... little black and gray blobs and little bright ones and then, one day last week, the whole shebang − zig zag fortification, scintillating scotomata, etc. BUT I get this weird prodrome thing − feel sort of 'not real'. Also dizziness, (I've had the frank room spinning vertigo maybe 2 times in my life). Most disturbing, I have these little 'weak' spells (which the docs say are 'panic attacks') where I feel like I'm going to faint but never do. Also, I've had the ringing in my ears, off and on, for over a decade. I'm not asking you to make an e-mail diagnosis, just wondering if this sounds anything like BAM [as a matter of fact, vertigo, decreased level of consciousness and tinnitus are well-known aura symptoms of basilar-type migraine]. I asked my own (new) internist who claims to be very experienced with migraines. She just said 'I doubt it. That's pretty rare.' ... Now the reason I keep going back to BAM (I should add I am waaay over the age of adolescent, but I am female and my migraine auras are generally associated with my cycle and hormones), is that I've also had weakness on one side, the weird 'depersonalization' feelings, dizziness and near fainting feelings and the ringing in the ears."

(Sherbaker, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Can some of you migraine "pros" explain?, March 23, 1998; additions in square brackets by Klaus Podoll)

"I get derealization/depersonalization when I have a migraine..."

(Jackie, Newsgroups: alt.support.anxiety-panic, Subject: derealisation.. a symptom?, November 7, 2002)

"By the way I have a combined form of migraine. Classic and basilar. I suffer from depersonalization to begin with, aura, up to complete blindness, pareses, speech losses, etc."

(Irnann, lost webpage, January 26, 2004)

"My migraine experience starts with hunger. I suddenly feel hungry. Shortly after that my vision becomes 'distant'. It is somewhat like seeing the world projected on a screen. The actual experience is not that obviously artificial, but that is the closest that I can come to conveying the feeling. The next stage involves blind spots... After this stage the actual aura occurs... Once that stage has passed I can unsually see clearly again. Sometimes the process starts again, and occasionally (not recently, thankfully) I have a severe headache that lasts a few hours."

(Adriaan Wessels, Zhurnal Wiki a.k.a. ^zhurnal, the journal of ^z = Mark Zimmermann, Topic Personal History - Migraine Visions, August 8, 2004)

References

Baker D, Hunter E, Lawrence E, Medford N, Patel M, Senior C, Sierra M, Lambert MV, Phillips ML, David AS. Depersonalisation disorder: clinical features of 204 cases. Br J Psychiatry 2003; 182: 428-433. [PDF]
Cahill CM. Depersonalisation in migraine. Br J Psychiat, Electronic Letter, June 20, 2003.
Cahill CM, Murphy KC. Migraine and depersonalization disorder. Cephalalgia 2004; 24: 686-687.
Comfort A. Out-of-body experiences and migraine. Am J Psychiatry 1982; 139: 1379-1380.
Lambert MV, Sierra M, Phillips ML, David AS. The spectrum of organic depersonalization: a review plus four new cases. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 2002; 14: 141-154.

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