Facial metamorphosis, seeing faces wrongly and alcohol

Specific Illnesses & Conditions VM/MAV
#1

Hi guys,

Has anyone ever experienced faces not looking right?

I absolutely cained the alcohol last night at our staff Xmas party. It was a stupid thing to do but I did it. I had a bloody good time. However, today my pulse is seriously weak and I have a weird pain in my right arm.
The weak heart is really worrying me. I’m scared to sleep. I think it’s mixing my drugs with alcohol.

Anyway… My heads been on another planet, floaty wise all day but to tonight, I was talking to my friend and as I was looking at him, suddenly his mouth looked wrong, and then looked like it was on his forehead. It sounds nuts but I don’t really have any other way to describe it. It just looked like he was talking out of his forehead and his forehead was now his chin.

I freaked out big time, I got a hot and wooshing feeling from my head, down my limbs leaving them tingly and to my toes.

This weird face/mouth thing then happened a few more times.

When I was doing my make up, I was scared looking at my face incase it happened again and then it stays like that.

I was sure I’d read something about a case of a patient not being able to see faces properly in one of Dr Oliver Sacks books, so I googled it and I came across this- facial metamorphosis.

migraine-aura.com/content/e2 … ex_en.html

Other people describe it. One sounds quite similar:
’ in between i get what i call the Picasso Effect, where people’s eyes suddenly migrate to the same side of their noses when i look at them, or their mouths expand until the corners are nudging their ears, such stuff.

Other good consise article on aura:
migrainetalkblog.wordpress.com/2 … ing-again/

If anyone else has ever had anything like this I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve looked in the mirror before and not been able to see my face as a whole before- having to focus one one feature at a time, but this is quite different and very bloody alarming and scary. I’m sure it’s ‘only’ migraine but its so screwed up& I’m worried it could become a chronic symptom one day- everything else seems to of.

Thanks. (Freaked out) Lou x

#2

im sorry to hear this that sounds really scary! can i make an observation- it seems like you often get problems from alcohol- is it worth drinking if it makes you feel worse???

#3

Yeah, I am aware that alcohol is the cause of the heightened auras and weird stuff and I usually keep alcohol level low. I don’t go out and get smashed every week. However, on the rare occasion it is sometimes hard to resist not to have a blow out and return to the person you were before, without MAV.
I’m not really asking about problems with alcohol. I’m asking if anyone has had the facial metamorphosis.

#4

Hi Lou,

I get this with my typical migraines where I look at people’s faces and I just can’t register them. They don’t seem right, I can’t understand the expressions and it feels like features are missing from their face?! As soon as I realise it’s happening, I then start to get tingly on one side, can’t speak and my tongue goes all numb.

I’d say the alcohol probably messed with you a bit and I’d probably rest and drink lots of water and reign in a bit until you feel better. Sometimes I’m fine with drinking, sometimes I’m awful for 3 or 4 days afterwards! So I know how you feel. :frowning:

xx