I am posting the following in the hopes that what I learned from this experience might be helpful to someone else. I am 55 years old and I have had migraines for most of my life but never any aura until recently.

Last year I started having episodes during which I couldn't talk lasting about 10 min to 45 min. I was tested for epilepsy and I had several imaging studies. Everything was normal and the dx was complicated migraine.

A few months ago, I experienced visual abnormalities, most notably double vision followed by lack of coordination of my legs. I couldn't stand. This happened again several weeks later. And about a week afterwards, I wasn't able to talk for hours and after some time the legs gave out again.

The first time, I had the visual and coordination problems, I went to the er. The neuro who examined me told me nothing was wrong with me neurologically. His opinion was that I was faking and he seemed to think that I had been physically abused because of bruises on my cheek and under my eye as a result of a recent tooth extraction. A psych consult was ordered.
Anyway, after 2 days, I was able to walk again. My neuro ordered more imaging and another epilepsy evaluation. Everything was normal again.

On the second occasion, I was driving when the double vision hit. I didn't know where to steer the car but I did know that I was in the right lane so I pulled over to the shoulder. I was taken by ambulance to an er at a different hospital. Again tests were normal and 2 days later, I was able to walk.

The next episode, during which I couldn't walk or talk. found me at the er once again. A resident diagnosed me with psychosomatic illness and I was discharged. By this time my primary and my neuro were strongly suggesting that I see a psychiatrist which I did although I was pretty certain I had no psychological problem related to the incidents.

Shortly afterwards, I was reading an internet article about migraines which included a description of Basilar migraines. I was stunned that my symptoms matched so perfectly. I emailed a headache specialist that I hadn't seen for about 3 years (long story for another day) asking for his thoughts. Within hours, I had a reply that yes, my symptoms would suggest basilar migraine but it would be unusual for basilar migraine to start at my age. He also wrote that he didn't consider any of my symptoms to be psychosomatic at all.

I read some more articles about basilar migraine and I found out that oral contraceptives can be a trigger. Bells started going off in my head. I had never taken oral contraceptives but I had been taking tamoxifen for the last 3 years. The active ingredient in tamoxifen and many oral contraceptives is estrogen. Bingo. Hormonal changes had been a migraine trigger for me when I was younger and in the last three years, while i was on tamoxifen, the migraines kept getting worse and more frequent.

Of course, I stopped the tamoxifen. I haven't had any basilar migraine symptoms since. The shrink agreed (somewhat grudgingly) that there aren't psychosomatic issues. Now if only, I could get rid of the rest of the migraines!

Basilar migraine is very rare. In fact, I don't know of anyone who has experienced it. I would love to hear from anyone who has had basilar migraine.

Hi Millsy

I'm really sorry to hear you've had to go through all this - how scarey (on top of cancer?).

I'm glad you found the answer. But I wanted to say how mad I feel that you were fobbed off with a psychosomatic dx. It's such a lazy, disrespectful and incompetent way to treat any patient.

It really does underline that we have to be our own researchers and even our own doctors.

best wishes