Search guides
What to track for migraines
Track migraine days, symptoms, medication days, sleep, meals, hydration, hormones, triggers, and disability to make care decisions easier.
Track the information that helps you and your clinician make decisions. A partial consistent log is better than a perfect log you abandon.
Track each attack
- Start and end time
- Pain severity and location
- Nausea, vomiting, aura, light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, dizziness, and brain fog
- Medication name, dose, time, relief, and side effects
- Missed work, school, caregiving, or plans
Track medication days
Medication days are often more useful than dose counts. If you take acute medication on many days per month, your clinician may need to adjust the acute plan, consider prevention, or assess medication-overuse headache risk.
Track context
Sleep, meals, hydration, caffeine, alcohol, menstrual timing, stress, weather, exercise, and strong sensory exposures can help identify repeated patterns.
Track disability
Record whether the attack made you miss work, school, caregiving, sports, social plans, driving, or household responsibilities. Disability helps clinicians understand impact even when pain scores do not tell the whole story.
Make it appointment-ready
Before a visit, summarize the last 30 to 90 days: migraine days, headache days, medication days, longest attack, attacks with vomiting, attacks with aura, and missed-activity days.
Download a template
Sources
- Mayo Clinic: Migraine diagnosis and treatment
- American Migraine Foundation: Diet and migraine
- MedlinePlus: Migraine
Migraine Manager is a personal health journal, not a medical device. It does not diagnose or treat any condition. Always follow your clinician's advice for diagnosis, medication, and treatment decisions.
Key terms
People Also Ask
Related migraine questions
Migraine diary template?
A migraine diary template for tracking attack timing, symptoms, medication, triggers, disability, and appointment-ready summaries. Read the guide.
Tracking and appointment prep?
What to record in a migraine diary and how to turn it into a useful clinician conversation. Read the guide.
How to prepare for a migraine doctor visit?
What to bring, what to summarize, and what to ask when seeing a clinician about migraine. Read the guide.