A JOURNAL FOR MIGRAINE SUFFERERS

If you have been diagnosed with migraines, or know someone who suffers from them, then you might wonder how you might tackle this condition. The first thing that you need to learn, is that migraines are not simple headaches.

Migraines are neurological conditions that manifest as intense headaches with sensory distortions like visual or hearing sensitivity. In order to approach this condition, you must know how to keep track of what works and what doesn’t, and the best way to discover this is by keeping a “Migraine Journal.” To start, a migraine journal helps you keep track of your migraine episodes, it also allows your doctor to be informed of the patterns and timings of your migraines, and it helps to build a case in case you ever go on work disability due to migraines. Below is a list of questions to write down each time you have a migraine episode, and the more specific you can be with your answers, the easier it will be for you and your doctor to locate patterns and causes.

An effective migraine journal answers these 10 questions:

1. What time did the episode begin, and when did it end?

2. Did you experience any warning signs before the episode began?

3. Where did you feel the pain? Be as specific as you can.

4. What type of pain did you experience? Throbbing? Piercing? Pressure? Other?

5. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest, what was the level of your pain?

6. What medications did you take or what treatments did you do during your episode?

7. What was the last thing you ate before the episode? Think in terms of ingredients.

8. How many hours of sleep did you have before the episode?

9. What activities did you do before the episode?

10. What stressful moments did you have before or during the episode?

In a migraine journal, which can be as simple as a blank notebook, you will also need to write down what medications, natural supplements, and foods you are consuming on a daily basis, and provide as many details as possible. If you are consistent in your journal writing for a month, you are likely to find the pattern of your migraines, and perhaps the trigger is lack of sleep, stressful moments, or a food you are continuously eating; but you’ll never know until you have the evidence presented right to you from your journal.

Disclaimer: Any patient or person mentioned in this article, is a fictional character. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.