Migraine is a neurological condition producing throbbing pain, usually on one side, with nausea and sensitivity to light and sound. Attacks last from four hours to three days. Skipped meals, disturbed sleep and dehydration are more consistent triggers than the food lists usually circulated.
Symptoms of migraine
Symptoms vary, and few people have all of them. These are the ones most commonly reported.
2-minute check
Is it migraine or tension headache?
Four questions. Your result appears immediately — we do not ask for an email.
What does the pain feel like?
Does routine movement make it worse?
Any nausea, or sensitivity to light and sound?
Can you carry on with your day?
Your answers fit a tension-type headache more closely
Posture, screen time, sleep and hydration are usually where the answer is.
Your answers sit between the two patterns
A headache diary over six weeks is the most useful next step, and it costs nothing.
Your answers fit a migraine pattern closely
This is not a diagnosis. Migraine is treatable and under-treated, and worth proper medical assessment.
This check is an indication, not a diagnosis. It does not replace medical advice.
When to see a doctor
Arrange a medical appointment rather than waiting if you have:
- A sudden, severe headache reaching peak within a minute — emergency
- Headache with fever, neck stiffness, rash or confusion — emergency
- A new headache after the age of 50
- A change in an established pattern
- Headache with weakness, numbness or difficulty speaking
- Needing pain relief on more than ten days a month
What causes migraine
Migraine involves a wave of altered activity across the brain and changes in the trigeminal nerve system, not simply dilated blood vessels.
By sleep debt, a skipped meal, hormonal shift or stress.
Producing aura in those who experience it.
Releasing inflammatory signals around blood vessels.
With nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound.
Risk factors
- A family history of migraine
- Being female — rates are considerably higher
- Hormonal fluctuation, including menstruation
- Irregular sleep
- Skipped or delayed meals
- Dehydration
- High or fluctuating stress
- Overuse of pain relief medication
How migraine is diagnosed
| Test | What it indicates |
|---|---|
| A headache diary over 6–8 weeks | The single most useful investigation |
| Clinical history | Migraine is diagnosed clinically |
| Blood pressure | To exclude a contributing cause |
| Haemoglobin and ferritin | Anaemia worsens headache frequency |
| Vitamin D and B12 | Commonly low and relevant |
| Thyroid function | Affects headache frequency |
| Brain imaging | Only where features suggest another cause |
Not sure which of these you have had?The assessment asks, and tells you which are worth requesting.
Check my health parametersWhat happens if it is left untreated
Stated factually, because these risks are real and manageable rather than inevitable.
- Medication-overuse headache from frequent pain relief
- Substantial loss of working days
- Anxiety and low mood
- Disturbed sleep
- Avoidance of social and work situations
How Health Total treats migraine
Our protocol runs alongside whatever your doctor has prescribed. We do not ask anyone to stop medication.
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1
Start with a diary, not a diet
Six to eight weeks of recording sleep, meals, hydration, cycle and attacks reveals the actual pattern. Guessing does not.
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2
Stabilise meals and sleep first
Skipped meals and irregular sleep are the most consistent triggers, and the most fixable.
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3
Address hydration and caffeine honestly
Both under-hydration and caffeine withdrawal are common, under-recognised triggers.
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4
Identify the few real food triggers
They exist but are fewer than the popular lists suggest. Restriction without evidence narrows the diet pointlessly.
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5
Review pain relief frequency with your doctor
Using acute medication on more than ten days a month can itself sustain the headaches.
What makes this different
A standard diet plan
- A standard list of trigger foods
- Diet changed before any tracking
- Sleep and meal timing ignored
- No review of painkiller frequency
How we do it
- A diary establishing your actual pattern
- Meals, sleep and hydration stabilised first
- Only genuine triggers removed
- Medication-overuse headache checked for
Nine questions. Two minutes.You will see your result before we ask for your name.
Start my free assessmentAudited results
Publication pending. Aggregate outcome figures for this condition — sample size, inclusion criteria, mean and median change, range and dropout rate — will appear here once the audited outcome report is complete and signed by a second clinician.
Under the ASCI Healthcare Guidelines, a success rate, timeline or efficacy claim requires peer-reviewed data or the organisation’s own audited outcome report. We would rather publish nothing here than publish a number we cannot substantiate.
Case studies
De-identified clinical records — the plan as delivered, the markers as measured, and adherence as it actually was. Each signed by the supervising clinician and verified by a second.
Case file 1
Awaiting the case production line — dependency D6.
Case file 2
Awaiting the case production line — dependency D6.
Case file 3
Awaiting the case production line — dependency D6.
The standard each case must meet before publication →
Published with specific, informed and withdrawable consent. Individual results vary.
Why Health Total for migraine
Clinicians, named
Over 200 doctors and nutritionists. Every condition page here carries the name and credentials of the person who wrote it and the person who reviewed it.
Indian food, Indian bodies
Thirty years of treating Indian patients, with plans built from Indian kitchens and read against Asia-Pacific metabolic cut-offs.
Our own data
Outcomes come from audited internal records, not from studies conducted elsewhere on other populations.
Somewhere to walk in
Physical centres across India, which most app-based programmes cannot offer.
Recipes for migraine
Potassium-rich kachumber
Most blood pressure advice stops at salt. Potassium is the half nobody mentions.
See the recipe →Magnesium-rich everyday meals
Magnesium sits behind sleep, migraine and muscle cramp. Most of it is already in your kitchen.
See the recipe →Warm milk with nutmeg
Part preparation, part ritual. We are clear about which part does the work.
See the recipe →Articles
Salt, potassium and blood pressure
Most of the sodium in an Indian diet is not in the salt shaker.
Read →Migraine triggers: what is real and what is coincidence
The food you blame may be a symptom of the attack, not its cause.
Read →Questions we are asked
Is chocolate really a trigger?
Less often than believed. Craving chocolate is frequently part of the early phase of an attack that has already begun, which makes it look like a cause when it is an effect. A diary separates the two.
Can I prevent migraine with diet alone?
Diet is one lever among several, and for many people meal regularity matters more than meal content. Sleep, hydration, stress and, where appropriate, preventive medication all have a role.
Why do I get migraine around my period?
The drop in oestrogen before menstruation lowers the threshold for an attack. Menstrual migraine is a recognised pattern and is managed with that timing in mind.
I take painkillers most days. Is that a problem?
It can be. Using acute pain relief on more than about ten days a month can produce medication-overuse headache, where the treatment sustains the problem. This needs handling with your doctor rather than abruptly.
Start with your own numbers.Free assessment, free first consultation, and no figure quoted that we cannot substantiate.
Start my free assessmentReferences
- International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition (ICHD-3).
- Indian Academy of Neurology guidelines on the management of migraine.
- [Further references to be completed by the medical review panel.]