The concept of headache clinic has been there in developed countries for a long time. It is now fast catching up in emerging countries too. India with a population of 120 million has almost 15 to 20 percent of individuals suffering from headaches.
A vast majority of them are primary headaches and the others are secondary headaches. The most common primary headache is migraine. In spite of being a very common neurological condition it is highly under diagnosed all over the world. Less than half of the individuals who suffer from this headache approach medical help. Over the counter medication is the common mode of treatment.
A headache clinic is a highly specialised service where a team of medical personnel come together to help you control your headache. It’s a multidisciplinary clinic with a neurologist heading a team consisting of clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, pain specialists, trained nurses and physician assistants.
On your first clinic visit a detailed history will be taken and you have to fill a brief questionnaire which has some important questions helping us to understand your symptoms in detail. You will then consult the neurologist who will make the diagnosis based on your interview, physical examination and neurological examinations.
To confirm the diagnosis you may be asked to do imaging like CT Head/MRI Brain, relevant blood investigations or other specialised tests.
We may ask you to maintain headache diaries and pain severity scales. At every follow up we will assess your response to treatment by following up headache pain scores, Quality of Life indices etc
In case of coexisting anxieties and stress one of our team members will consult you because stress management is very important in any headache treatment.
Finally we would decide the right therapy for you because every individual is different and the treatment should be tailor made for you.
Attending a headache clinic allows you to spend more time with us so that we too can understand your headache better. The headache clinic services include all current therapies including medications, neurostimulation, botulinum toxin injections for chronic migraine and the recent monoclonal antibody drugs for episodic and chronic migraine.
We request you to take prior appointments for the clinic through our main numbers.
Dr. R Sureshkumar
Sr. Consultant – Neurology, Renai Medicity