Metro Hospital and Heart Institute

Hi, I’m Dr Sonia Lal Gupta and I’m a neurologist at M.P Heart Clinic in New Delhi. I specialise in headaches and strokes.

Why headaches, you might ask?

That’s one of the most common problems that people face and the reason why they actually go to the doctor as well. Interestingly though, only one-third of the people actually get treatment for their headache. So when it comes to a headache, one of the most common types of headaches is called Migraine and a lot of people suffer from this migraine for years and years and years without realising that what they have is actually migraine, for which they can get treatment and they can feel better.

So what exactly is a migraine?

A migraine is, typically, a unilateral, a one sided, or a headache that happens on both the sides. It’s a thumping headache. People usually say that they feel a pounding pain. It is usually accompanied by nausea, light sensitivity – you do not like how the light makes you feel, noise sensitivity – even noise bothers you, and all you want to do is sit in a dark room and sleep.

So when it comes to a migraine, what are the different phases of it?

When there is a prodrome phase where you kind of start knowing the migraine is going to come on. You might feel very tired, very irritable. Then after that is the aura phase which not many people have. But some people describe flashing lights or some numbness in the hands. Followed by the headache phase which can last anywhere from four hours to seventy-two hours. Then after the pain goes away, there is a phase called the postdrome phase where you can actually feel exhausted and tired up to twenty-four hours even after a headache has gone away. So think about it, it can take up to at least two to three days at times for you to recover from one single migraine.

There are a lot of triggers of a migraine you can now about which includes lack of sleep, hunger, stress. Food triggers like red wine, chocolate, and many other triggers depending from person to person. But to know more about what you should do, you should talk to your doctor that you have a migraine.

You can always contact me on Lybrate or you can call us our M.P Heart Clinic number which is on the Lybrate website, to meet me and we can help get your migraines under control.

Thank you