Back in the early ’80s I was a bit of a Diet Pepsi fiend – probably consuming 4 to 6 cans a day at work. One day I was in the John reading the newspaper when I noticed a odd flickering. The flickering became so bad that I couldn’t read any more. Aside from flickering, everything had rainbow fringes around it.
Now I suppose 10 years earlier, I might have paid good money for a drug that did that, but the accompanying headache – and the need to be able to read – made this an unpleasant and frightening experience. I drove home (foolish youth!) and in about 2 hours of lying in a dark room the headache disappeared. My ophthalmologist said I had a classic migraine headache. Maybe, although I never heard anyone describe symptoms like that to their migraines.
I don’t remember how many additional episodes it took before I decided to heed a co-workers earlier advice that I stop drinking that poison. Aside from an additional episode when I drank some Crystal Lite at a picnic, I’ve never had those migraines again.