Free download

Printable migraine diary

One page a month. It adds up the numbers your doctor will ask for: migraine days, and days with each type of medicine.

Free, no email needed. Print one page per month.

What's on it

• A row for every day of the month: did you have a migraine, when it started and ended, how bad it got (mild, moderate, severe), what you took and when, and whether it helped.
• Totals at the bottom: migraine days, days with a simple painkiller, days with a triptan-type medicine, and days with any of them, next to the 10- and 15-day lines doctors use (what those lines mean).
• Space for notes, like what came before it.

How to keep it so it's useful

• Fill it in the same day. People undercount when they try to remember a month later, especially short headaches.
• Count days, not attacks. A migraine that runs past midnight touches two days, and doctors count both.
• Write the time you took each medicine. It helps you see when a second dose is due, and it's what tells you whether it worked.
• Keep at least three months before an appointment. That's the window most headache doctors look at.

Sources

1. The Migraine Trust. Keeping a migraine diary.
2. International Headache Society. ICHD-3, 8.2 Medication-overuse headache.
3. Miller and colleagues, Cephalalgia 2020. Recalled headache days compared with a daily e-diary.