Had this happen while driving 2 days ago:

Ocular Migraines Explained - All About Vision [Animation]

A small blurry spot appeared in my vision about the size of a quarter at arms length. I could see it with either eye closed and both eyes closed so I immediately though...aneurysm and I'll be tits up in a few min Then, the spot started expanding with the center looking like the camouflaged alien in The movie Predator. Around the edges were small blurry prisms.

So, I started driving to the ER since I was out in a rural area. within 20 min the spot grew so large the edges went out of my vision and the blurriness went away. So I kept going to an optometrist. He quickly explained that I had a harmless "ocular migraine" with no headache associated.......what?

This is a first for me in almost 61 years, but I have to wonder if it is not somehow PN related since in reading about the 'OC' I learned the same thing I learned from experts about the cause of PN....."we don't know".

Anyone else here had this phenomenon occur?

Yep, had them all the time when I was in my 40s, well before I developed SFN. The first one scared the crap out of me, and I ran right up to the opthamologist. By the time I got there, it had gone away.

Mine would start with slightly blurred vision, followed by a small flashing spot. The spot would eventually take the shape of a boomerang, and get larger and larger. After 20 - 30 minutes, it would go away.

Mine were definitely estrogen related. When I started on HRT, I started having them daily. When I cut back on dosage, they stopped. I haven't had one in quite a while now.

Ok thanks Janie, good to know it's most likely unrelated to PN. Still scary has hell though

You're likely to have more. I would only notice when one was coming on when I was at my computer. The monitor seemed to get a little blurry, then after a short time, the small blinking object appeared.

The regularity with which I had them varied greatly. I kept a log for a while....once a year, twice a year, three times in one month, then nothing for the rest of the year. They lasted for about eight years.

The best one was the one that hit while I was driving on the beltway in Washington D.C. Good thing I can filter things out pretty well.

I first got ocular migraines in my 40's, during perimenopause. Around the same time I had Raynaud's for several months, and various neurological oddities. My ocular migraines were usually a transparent pattern, like a crackle glaze on pottery, superimposed over my field of vision. I had them daily for months but they never lasted more than a minute. The other symptoms in hindsight I believe were the beginnings of neuropathy, but probably not the migraines. I found out that my mother has them, and both my kids have had them since childhood. None of them have neuropathy. They see various neon zigzag or bubble patterns. My daughter also has the headaches.

When this first happened I was afraid the eye doctor would think I was nuts, but of course he knew right away what it was. For a long time I could never make sense of how physiologically this could occur--including one episode of seeing bicycle wheels turning, and bugs crawling about amongst them. Now I think it's just that a part of the brain was being affected that had previously processed those kind of visions or patterns.

It was interesting to read that the cause may be inflammatory, since my neurologist is convinced that my SFN is inflammatory, even though there's never been objective evidence of it.