Tracking your migraine attacks through a diary is crucial for effective management. This guide will help you understand how to use a migraine diary to track attack frequency, symptoms, medication use, and lifestyle habits. Whether you prefer a paper diary or an app, such as the Canadian Migraine Tracker or Migraine Buddy, detailed observation can guide your treatment and help you identify patterns. Learn the essential elements to monitor, the benefits of keeping a migraine diary, and how it can be a valuable tool in managing your migraine.
Want to download our Printable Migraine Diary Template? Click here
Invisible on MRI, Visible in a Diary
Tracking migraine through a diary is crucial for effective management. Detailed observation helps guide treatment, especially when trying new therapies. Believe our experience: a headache diary is a key to successful migraine management. It does not have to be time-consuming. It’s a habit to adopt.
- Paper Diary: Flexible and easy to review, often used in clinics. You can view paper diaries here.
Elements to Monitor:
- Attack Frequency: Use a 0-1-2-3 scale to record impact on function.
- 0 is a headache free day. Some call those “crystal clear” days. If you have chronic migraine, maybe you don’t have many of those, so it’s important to record them.
- 1 is a mild attack. It may be a mild headache, or other mild symptoms, but you can function. Acute treatment is not always essential at this stage.
- 2 is a moderate attack: your function is slowed. Acute treatment is usually needed.
- 3 is a severe attack: you cannot do much and may be bedridden. Usually there are prominent migraine symptoms and severe pain. Acute treatments may fail.
- Aura: If you do experience auras (visual, sensory, speech or even weakness) you can track them.
- Other Symptoms: It may be helpful to watch other symptoms such as vertigo attacks (vestibular migraine), vomiting (severity marker), or others.
- Menstrual Periods: Essential for women as it will help to diagnose menstrual migraine and guide therapy.
- Acute Medication Use: Did you take something to treat the attack? What did you use? This is important to observe your pattern of use and watch for overuse.
- Efficacy of Medications: Track effectiveness of different treatments.
- Preventives Use: Over a year, it may be difficult to remember what the situation was like with preventive A or B. Keeping track of the preventives helps you make decisions. For more information on preventives, see this post.
- Lifestyle Habits: If you are trying mindfulness or an exercise program, track your sessions in your diary. It’s motivating and will allow you to see if there’s an impact on your migraine.
- Any others that may be helpful: every person with migraine will track things specific to them and their needs – don’t be afraid to track what you think you should.
Tracking Triggers
We find that it’s very difficult to track triggers as there are many of them, and they tend to accumulate. Tracking triggers in detail may increase anxiety and even trigger migraine. For people interested in a detailed analysis of triggers, we recommend the N-1 Curelator App. Once the observation on triggers is done, it is best to focus on protective behaviour or “migraine friendly lifestyle.”
Will I keep a diary for the rest of my life?
Of course not. The diary is a tool. It should be worth your time and effort. It is essential during the treatment trial periods, but once you reach a more stable zone, the diary can be stopped. If things go unstable again, restart.
Whatever you choose to do, bring the results to your appointment!
For additional information, read this post on keeping a migraine diary and this article on the best apps for tracking and managing migraine.
Join Migraine Canada™ for support and resources on better managing your migraines.
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