Hello to all the Migraine Canada™ followers! 

Recently, the Canadian Headache Society launched an App for migraine monitoring: the Canadian Migraine Tracker.

Using a headache diary is a good way to keep track of the situation and observe the results of treatments. Many options are available, paper and app. 

Many users have shared questions and feedback with us, and on behalf of the CHS team I wanted to answer them to help as many people as possible to use this App, or any other app, successfully! Here are five questions that frequently came up. 

1. Why can’t I enter two attacks / events on the same day? 

Usually what happens is that the same migraine attack will fluctuate during the day. It can also be treated and come back (that’s called a recurrence). 

The way to use the Tracker is to enter the worst degree reached on that 24h day according to the 0-1-2-3 technique. You can decide to define the day as you wish, starting at midnight, at 6AM, what fits your routine best. 

The tracker is built to be easy to summarize and provide an overview. This means that some details cannot be analyzed. That’s the fine balance between precision and synthesis! 

2. Why does it use a 0-1-2-3 scale and not a 0-10 pain scale? 

Migraine is way more than pain. People report very diverse symptoms. It is impossible to account for this diversity in an app. The 0-1-2-3 scale is based on function. It represents the impact of all your combined symptoms on your day. 

As a side note, the 0-10 pain scale is losing popularity even in the pain world, as pain is very subjective. Research uses more and more scales based on concrete ability to function.

The 0-1-2-3 technique also allows an easier summary of the situation. Making statistics with 0-10 recorded many times per day would be difficult! 

3. Can I modify an entry on one day (for example, remove an attack if it is entered by mistake, or add an attack on a day that was entered as headache-free)? 

This problem was reported by many users with the pilot version and it should have been fixed now. Please let us know if you encounter bugs with this function. 

4. Where can I see a report of triggers, symptoms and other information not seen on the summary report? 

At present time, the Tracker does not offer a report of this information in a summary form. If there is interest for such a report, we could find funding to build it. This is a work in progress! We realize that it is important to access a summary of what you recorded. We started with a simple option focusing on basic information usually used to guide treatment adjustments, but we could expand. 

5. What is the difference between the Canadian Migraine Tracker and Migraine Buddy? 

Migraine Buddy is a leading app that has millions of users! Why build another App then? The reason was simple. The Canadian Headache Society heard many comments, both from patients and physicians, that Migraine Buddy was asking for too much information, was sending too many reminders and was not easy to use for communication in the clinic. That is why the tracker is more simple and offers many ways to send reports to health care providers. It also belongs to a Canadian scientific society. That could allow us to produce Canadian data for advocacy, and also to use it for research (which is being done at present time in Calgary for a project on cannabis!). 

Will there be improvements in the future? 

We plan to run a survey on the tracker next year and if we can gather funding to make changes following your feedback we will! 

Where can I send feedback? 

Please write to [email protected]

In summary, there is no «best app». Different people have different preferences and needs! Since the Canadian Migraine tracker is managed by a Canadian group of headache experts, we hope that it will serve you well. 

  Print This Post