Angiograms - did you get wild hallucinations during the procedure?

Did you have any visual disturbances when the dye was injected? I did. I was treated to the best light show I ever could have imagined! (I can imagine a lot...being a former psychonaut!)

It happened the instant they injected the dye - I know this because I was watching on a monitor (hey, who wouldn't like to see inside their head?). Instantly I saw an explosion of tiny red and blue dots, right in the middle of my vision. They were so bright I couldn't see anything else. Very primary color. This was followed about a second later by bright red lightning bolts that seemed to start at the edge of my vision and lance inwards.

Of course I have seen things like this before...but never so brightly and never while sober. I was shocked. I spoke up right away and said "I, um, I'm getting visuals, here...". The doctor just said it was the dye, and not to worry about it. So I laid there and enjoyed the show.

A bare minute of the explosions and lightning bolts went by, at which point they were replaced with a small dot near the center of my vision. The dot was pulsating, but never really blocked out what was behind it. Slowly, over the next 10 minutes, the dot expanded into a ring of pulsating. The center was fine. The ring slowly expanded until it passed out of the edge of my vision.

Later I would find out that the dot/ring I had seen was called a "scintillating scotoma" (wiki link) and is something that happens rather regularly to a small portion of the population - sufferers of "ocular migraines". Wild stuff!

I had two more ocular migraines, one about a week after my angiogram and one about a year later. I haven't had any since.

So...did anyone else experience this?

Um, no, but would it be weird if I said it sounded awesome? I was in and out of it throughout my angio. I saw the monitors but had no idea I was looking at my brain. Besides....a super cute nurse guy kept talking to me (I think to keep me from looking at the monitors) He kept trying to make me laugh and every time I giggled he yelled at me for moving...it didn't matter that I just had a stroke...I still recognized his attractiveness.....kind of stupid of me now that I think about it.

Kristi. I love the fact that you still recognized the guy was cute even though you just had a stroke!! You must have been somewhat with it. I was out of it. I couldn’t even speak after my stroke.

oh, yes! It was way cool! But they told me I probably would before hand and I did! Went home hearing Pink Floyd in my head for a couple of days LOL

LOL I could speak but I don't know how "with it" I was. EMS kept asking me about my face...did it "always look like that?" I remember talking during the angio and laughing with the nurse guy but there are quite a few gaps in my memory of that day. I do remember...(this is so retarded) facebooking on my blackberry in the ambulance saying "this is the worst day of my life" I have no idea wtf was wrong with me. It's so bizarre how your mind works....who updates their facebook status in the ambulance on the way to the hospital directly after having a stroke????????

I remember thinking at the time "This is WAY better than anything I've taken before!!!!"

I could only hope that somewhere, at that very moment, a bell tolled
"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day..."

Angio this past Wednesday and I kept my eyes closed and had green lightening flashing in my head.

Hi Kristi. I could not have updated my blackberry after bleeding from my head and a stroke. You go, girl. Ha ha ha They brought me my Blackberry in the hospital but even though I tried to use it, I couldn’t. My husband was afraid it would upset me not to be able to use it, so he had my kids take it from me (big kids…age 21 & 23). I was a mess when I had the first angiogram. So much so that I remembered nothing except that I was upset that they had put an allergy bracelet on me. I kept trying to take it off. I answered yes to allergies when I meant no. I answered yes to all questions but the Doctors hadn’t figured that out.

I had nice flashes, weird sensations, heat/cold, etc. in the actual angiogram (that started at the groin), and the classic "wetting pants sensation" for the CT angiogram that was done through my arm!

I was like, "Why bother with doing illicit drugs if I can trip like this legally!"

Cant say i got the light show but i have had eye migraines that use to last about 30-40mins. I was advised to just go in a dark room until they went away...the first time it happened after my bleed i was scared and called the ambulance right away...had it a couple of times after that and at least know what it is....God bless glad you enjoyed it though lol

Hi Neil. I had a very similar experience and was like watching a "meteor shower", up close and personal :)!

/Michele

Yes I experienced it after my last angio. It was a few days after lasted about 10mins. My NS said it was the migraine you mentioned. He said it is common.

The migraine really threw me for a loop, especially as there was about a year between my angio and migraine! I had no idea what it was, at the time, and thought that it was brought on by my father in law's wine!

My second angiogram was real wild, I was in my garage staring at the garage door and white buckets for a moment, it seemed as if I was floating above it. I got real nauseous and this crazy light show and weird sensations started happening. Then they stopped the nausea and it all stopped :)

Hi there I had hallucinations. Mine was like looking into a kaleidoscope you had when you were a child. An explosion of colours moving around and inside my head I was trying to follow them. I had much worse hallucinations after my craniotomy. I actually hallucinated things that happened to my family. No one could convince me they weren’t true. To this day I’m still unsure as they were so vivid. X