Understanding a Migraine Heroes doctor report
How to read the headache, symptom and medication information recorded by your patient.
What the report is
Patients record their day once a day in the Migraine Heroes app. The report summarizes those records for a period they choose, up to six months, to support a conversation about headache frequency, associated symptoms, daily impact and medication use.
Patients create and share the report themselves. It is not a diagnostic assessment.
The key information, in the order you need it
- 1Summary first. Page 1 gives frequency, medication use and any thresholds for review.
- 2Every day accounted for. Untracked days are shown as such, never counted as headache-free.
- 3ICHD-3 definitions. Medication classes, thresholds and the menstrual window follow ICHD-3.
What it includes
Frequency and severity
By month and per 30 days, with a headache calendar.
Acute medication
Days used, by ICHD-3 medication class.
Characteristics
Pain location, aura reported and associated symptoms.
Daily impact
Days the patient slowed down, or skipped work or plans.
Menstrual timing
When recorded, headache days around menstruation.
Tracking completeness
Days tracked and missing information, shown throughout.
How to read it
- Headache day.
- A day the patient rated mild or worse. Each day reflects the worst pain of that day, shown as mild, moderate or severe.
- ICHD-3 criterion D symptoms.
- Headache days with recorded nausea or vomiting, or both photophobia and phonophobia. Other associated symptoms are listed separately.
- Per 30 days.
- Count divided by tracked days, times 30. Untracked days never lower a rate.
- Pain location.
- Grouped into regions, with left, right or both kept. Several locations can be recorded on one day.
- Aura reported.
- The patient selected “Aura” for that day. It does not confirm migraine with aura. “Not answered” is shown separately from “no”.
- Daily impact.
- An optional question on headache days: carried on as usual, slowed down, or had to skip work, cancel plans or lie down. Not a validated disability score.
- Acute-medication day.
- Any tracked day with acute medication recorded: which medication, number of doses and whether it helped. Strength and timing are not recorded.
- Menstrual window.
- Day −2 to +3 around the first logged day of menstruation (ICHD-3 Appendix A1.1).
- Days, not attacks.
- The tracker records each day once. Duration and progression of individual attacks are not captured.
Clinical review thresholds
When a threshold below is recorded in three or more consecutive months, page 1 shows it under “For clinical review”. These are signals worth discussing, not diagnoses. ICHD-3 criteria also require the pattern to last more than three months.
| Recorded pattern | Reference |
|---|---|
| Headache on 15 or more days a month | Relevant to chronic migraine assessment (ICHD-3 1.3) |
| Simple analgesics on 15 or more days a month | ICHD-3 8.2.3 |
| Triptans, ergots, opioids or combination analgesics on 10 or more days a month | ICHD-3 8.2.1, 8.2.2, 8.2.4, 8.2.5 |
| Several classes together on 10 or more days a month, with no single class over its own threshold | ICHD-3 8.2.6 |
Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society. ICHD-3. Cephalalgia 2018;38(1):1-211. ichd-3.org
What the report does not establish
It does not diagnose a headache disorder, establish cause, or replace clinical history and examination. All data is self-reported and may be incomplete.
About Migraine Heroes
Founded in 2019, Migraine Heroes began as one-on-one, practitioner-led care and is now an app used by more than 3,000 people.
Migraine Heroes is a self-management app and does not provide medical diagnosis or treatment.