Such a Headache

On the hunt for migraine relief in Mumbai.

Right now, I am either a runner with a migraine problem or a migraine sufferer with a running problem. Not that the semantics really matter, because whichever way I look at it, my migraine frequency has increased in line with my running. And it’s an absolute pain. 

Mine is not the sort of pain that can be banished with a couple of paracetamol and a lie down, nor with more water or sleep, either. At this point I’m so hydrated that, if the body has a water table, mine must be at bar height. I’m not even sure it’s the kind of pain that can be dispatched by giving up running because my migraines don’t have the courtesy to attach themselves consistently to running. Sometimes I run and get a migraine. More often I run and don’t. Sometimes I don’t run and still get one. And sometimes I run, get the beginning of a migraine and then the rest never actually follows. So I am left weak, nauseated and frustrated but without any actual, physical pain. 

What I do know, from over 10 years of documenting (in excel, I’ll have you know) my attacks is that there appears to be one, main trigger: doing things I enjoy doing — like running. 

Migraine and I go back a long way. To the best of my knowledge, I had my first attack in a primary school assembly, aged about 8. The words in my hymn book began swimming across the page, partially obscured, and I realised I could only see half of what was in front of me, no matter how I angled my eyes and face. I was allowed out of assembly to visit the nurse and although I don’t remember the specifics, was probably given some Calpol and sent out to the playground; it was the early 90s and, back then, there was NO problem that couldn’t be solved with a bit of Calpol and some fresh air. 

Throughout my senior school career I stressed myself into migraine attacks, year in, year out around exam time, and was regularly prescribed beta blockers to try and chemically uncoil the spring I seemed so intent on winding up inside my brain. Often the aura (the fuzziness in my eyes that I’ve enjoyed since Migraine #1 and have since learned the name for) gave way to confusion, vomiting and days of nausea and fatigue. On a couple of very special occasions I even lost the ability to form recognisable words — aphasia, this one is called — which continues to freak out anyone in my vicinity when it happens. 

And then, for a number of years, the migraines stopped. I don’t remember any significant episodes through my entire university degree, nor through the early stages of my career, despite piling pressure on myself as generously as I had back when I was 8 years old. I pushed, I achieved, I lived a life of international adventure (within the confines of a nice, stable corporate advertising job) and barely gave two thoughts to my old friend migraine. 

Until one day, around ten years ago, the migraines came back — sporadic at first, but now ramping up to a frequency of around twice a month. The severity can vary but the flow of symptoms is always the same. First, twinkly blind spots appear in my eyes and grow until they almost completely obscure my vision. For about half an hour, I can only see fuzzy bits and pieces of the world from around the edges of my eyes, but nothing clear or complete. Then, once my sight returns, I find out if I am getting any, all or none of the headache/ nausea/ aphasia. It’s like a pain receptor pot-luck — I never know which symptoms are going to show up, nor how long they will stay. 

If it weren’t for the blindness, some of these episodes wouldn’t actually be that bad — perhaps even a good excuse to have a short nap and hide away from the world for a while. But the blindness is scary, especially if I am out and about in Mumbai when a migraine renders me unable to read my phone to call someone, or book a taxi, or, worse still, to see properly when trying to cross a road. My fear of this happening is a great motivator, however.

I am now on a quest for a cure for my migraines. While I know that western medicine will mostly stick to advice around ‘lifestyle changes’ and ‘avoiding triggers’, I am taking full advantage of Mumbai’s very accessible, private medical system to make sure I’ve exhausted all the available tests and pharmaceuticals. I have been MRI’d, done my bloods, been sports physio’d, seen a dermatologist (not really relevant here), had my eyes tested and been to the dentist. 

But while access to western medicine is all well and good, I face a new challenge when it comes to following prescriptions and advice here, and that is because I don’t speak pharma. Pharma companies in India make absolutely no effort to simplify their medicines for lay people. There is no middle-of-the-night ‘just grab some Calpol’ for Jasper here. Oh no. It’s a ‘Do I need the levosalbutamol sulphate ambroxol hydrochloride and guaiphenesin, or the dicyclomine hydrochloride & simethicone suspension?’ They all taste revolting, none of them come with dosage instructions and I have absolutely no idea what any of them are for. 

Even for myself, I struggle with what to take. Just recently I have given myself hypervitaminosis D by ordering and taking the wrong dosage of a Vitamin D supplement that, I now know, comes in various doses, in almost identical packaging, to be taken at different cadences. What you’re not supposed to do is take the monthly dosage daily. But that, my friends, is what I did - for about two months. And because the packaging has no dosage instructions, and the pharmacy offers no advice, nobody tried to stop me until luckily, a gynecologist (of all doctors) picked up on my mistake as I gave him my medical history. Hardly his specialism but thank goodness he was paying attention to what I was saying. I am now very wary of taking anything at all, and am especially scared of all the migraine medicines I have in the cabinet because at the onset of an attack, I am hardly at my most capable of making dosage decisions. 

Moving forwards, therefore, I have decided that what I am really in the Indian market for is alternative wisdom. I want to see what a more Eastern approach has to offer and I feel that its only right to embrace it here, in its natural habitat. So far on my quest, I have come across sound healing, reflexology and a weekly deep-tissue massage at home. You’ll notice an underlying sense of zen in these treatments and that is because I have been told that to balance all the cortisol-producing sports I enjoy doing, I need to find and deploy some hobbies which activate the parasympathetic nervous system. In other words, I need to learn to relax. Whether any of this is working, I can’t honestly say (on account of the unpredictability of my migraines) but whether I am enjoying it? The answer is yes. Now that I’ve convinced myself that these services, which in the UK would be firmly placed in the “indulgences” category, are in fact medically necessary, I am all in.

According to ChatGPT, sound healing is a therapeutic practice that uses sound vibrations to help relax the body, calm the mind, and promote emotional or energetic balance. Hmmm, OK. Reading this definition reminds me of why I wouldn’t traditionally be drawn to something like this. It’s about as woo-woo as it gets. So why did I decide to give it a go? Well, the session I signed up for was meant to be in a swimming pool. I am not sure how I thought I’d find emotional or energetic balance while trying to physically balance on a lilo out in the middle of a pool, but I was very keen to try. I do find water relaxing to be around, after all, as long as tidal wave Jasper isn’t also in the same water body.

Jasper is not known for his zen-like qualities.

Alas, as bad luck would have it, this year’s monsoon long overstayed its welcome and on the evening when I was supposed to be bobbing about on therapeutic soundwaves, it bucketed it down. I assume sound healing doesn’t work if the supposed recipients of the vibrations are simultaneously being hammered by raindrops and I also assume thunder and lightning over an outdoor pool do very little to relax the body or calm the mind. 

As a result, our floating sound bath became a ballroom sound bath. We arrived to a grid of yellow and white striped pool towels lying still and flat on the parquet floor, feet pointing towards a slightly raised stage on which a gong, several brass bowls and some marigolds sat behind a line of fake tealight candles. Our sound healer and guide for the evening looked like Mystic Meg, in a teal turban and a kaftan, although I doubt she dresses like that in her day job as an architect. 

I was there with a group of friends who were as unfamiliar with sound healing as I was and also deeply sceptical, but I think we all put on a convincing show of being enthralled by the introduction. I ended up in the front row, closest to the instruments, although I have no idea if that made any difference to the experience. Once we were given the nod, we made ourselves as flat and still as the towels and off we went on an hour-long guided meditation. 

An hour is a long time to lie still on a parquet floor, with or without a towel. Someone (the one man in the room) definitely fell asleep and it’s highly possible I did too. I just hope I didn’t snore as loudly if I did. Gongs were gonged, bowls were bonged, tubular bells sang out around the ballroom and a rainstick disguised as a tambourine reminded us of why were weren’t floating. While it might have been more comfortable, I’m relieved we weren’t floating; whether it was a trance or a snooze that took me out of my body for that hour, I’m quite sure I would have capsized.

At the end, as we reawakened our minds and the numbest parts of our bodies, the sound healer asked us what we had experienced. A few veterans in the room recounted their discoveries and a lady behind me spoke of an ice cold sensation in her neck when she had shifted position at some point in the journey. At this description, our guide got very excited. If you google ‘ice cold sensation in head after meditation’, one of the first things that the AI search assistant suggests,  is that it could be a sign of heightened awareness or a spiritual phenomenon like energy moving through your chakras. Oooh. However, if you change your search to ‘ice cold sensation in the head after lying still on a hard floor for a while’, google will tell you it’s most likely a pinched nerve. 

I think this just about sums up sound healing for me. Depending on the prompt you give it, you can probably find the spiritual or physiological answers you want. I didn’t go into it looking to feel energy moving through my chakras (I honestly don’t even know where or what my chakras are), but I did go into it hoping to feel what it is like to stay still for a while: to relax physically and mentally. And that is precisely what I got from it — a heavy sense of relaxation and a lot of yawning on the way home. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Because, why not? And one day, I really do want to do the floating version. 

While I wait for the weather and the availability of Mystic Meg to align, I’m jumping feet first into another alternative therapy: reflexology. Google defines it as a complementary therapy that applies gentle pressure to specific points on the feet, hands, or ears to promote relaxation and well-being. For a few reasons, I am a lot less sceptical about this one. Firstly, it involves actual physical contact between therapist and client, which surely has to count for something. Secondly, it has deep roots in Chinese holistic practice and I have to say, I am all for their attitude towards treating the root cause, instead of just firefighting symptoms one by one, as Western medicine often does. And thirdly, the reflexologist I have found is British and has a charitable side-hustle making mulled wine at Christmas. If that’s not a character reference, I don’t know what is.

I have had three treatments so far, and I can attest that the chair is infinitely more comfortable than a wooden floor. With the comfort comes drowsiness and, with drowsiness, hopefully some sort of relaxation-related health benefit. Maybe I’m just paying for an hour in a comfy chair. Maybe I’m paying for an hour in a comfy chair with someone pressing my feet. Maybe I’m paying to activate my parasympathetic nervous system and reduce my risk of migraines. Most likely, nobody will ever know — but I definitely enjoy the sessions and I do feel more relaxed afterwards. Plus, I can now drink mulled wine for a good cause. 

Both the sound healing and the reflexology require me to leave my apartment, but if I am to embody the true spirit of the Mumbai lifestyle, I need to have someone come to me. This is where an app called Urban Company comes in. Urban Company used to be called Urban Clap. I am enormously glad they changed the name, although I suspect it was less about the, shall we say, contagious nature of the original and more to do with someone realising that, while not inaccurate, clapping for someone to come and clean your home probably isn’t the symbolism modern India needs to perpetuate. 

Urban Company can give you plumbers, IKEA furniture builders, spa services and pest control — among many other things — with as little as an hour’s notice. I’ve had both good and bad experiences with the app: the best probably being the massage lady I now have coming weekly and the worst being a plumber who kept trying to upsell me on what needed doing and who I ended up kicking out of the flat. On that occasion, I was given a full refund which is something no independent tradie would be able to offer. 

The main reason I turned to Urban Company for a massage lady is that I am someone who likes to plan in advance and stick to a tight schedule. I also like that they bring their own table with the special little face hole in, so that I don’t have to go through the thoroughly uncomfortable ritual of being beaten into submission on my own bed; face squashed into a pillow, neck at an unlikely angle. I know that there are independent ‘parlour ladies’ and ‘massage ladies’ who frequent our building because I see people posting in the building whatsapp group saying ‘Massage lady available now’ and then a phone number. I am not someone who sees a message like that and thinks, ‘Sure, I’ll drop everything (including my clothes) and let some stranger come and poke around in my shoulders and then see how much they want to charge for the honour.’ No, give me a time slot, a pre-payment and a highly responsive complaint hotline any day. 

I got lucky with my current massage lady. She speaks a bit of English, is young and very well presented and didn’t bat an eyelid when, on the first booking, I suggested we set up in the living room while Jasper raced from one end of the apartment to the other like a feral cat, chased by his nanny, stopping on his way past to slap my well-oiled, half-exposed bottom before running off cackling. It was quite probably the weirdest but also hopefully one of the safest environments she’s ever stepped into. I have since learned that Jasper’s room is the best place for a deep tissue massage — while he is at school. 

I have been told by several true Mumbaikars that the correct way to do things is to have a massage almost as often as I work out. Given that I am currently training for a half marathon and an obstacle course race, I work out a lot, but apparently that’s all the more reason to be massaged. The idea of seeing a massage as essential as a hot shower after a long run feels very foreign to me — someone who has grown up in a place where massages belong in luxury spas, hidden behind prohibitive pricing, only to be unlocked as a once-in-a-decade birthday gift. But, if it’s medically necessary, well that’s a different matter. And the massage lady herself has suggested it might be necessary, not from anything she has said, but by the bruises she has left on my back as she has undone months, if not years, worth of tension in my muscles. 

Here's a little taster of what the poor lady is working against - more on this once the Devil's Circuit event/ race is over and I fully understand what I signed myself up for!

What’s most incredible is how quickly I got over the initial awkwardness of being massaged while someone else cleaned my house or entertained my child. Even in that first session, any self-aware embarrassment evaporated faster than the essential oils burning under the massage table. I now find myself scheduling my other non-running activities like coffee dates and padel games around my massage bookings. How thoroughly Mumbai of me. 

I am not yet done with my exploration of alternative therapies. The Big One — Ayurveda — is high on my list of things to try but oddly I haven’t found a verified, trusted practitioner. I do not want to find out just how much damage an unqualified, unregulated, pseudo-scientific quack could do to my insides — or my chakras. Plenty of people here dabble in Ayurveda as a supposed wellness hack, but nobody seems willing to stake their reputation on recommending someone who can guide me safely into the world of natural remedies and the so-called ‘science of life’. I’ll keep looking. 

For now, then, I’ll just have to make do with my twice-weekly massages and hopefully, one day soon, a floating sound bath.