Diagnosis of Migraine
Diagnosis of migraine depends on your medical history that you will tell the doctor. Your doctor will ask you about the pain (side, character, and duration) and the associated symptoms before (prodrome and aura stages), during, and after (postdrome) the attack. Also, your doctor will ask if you have a positive family history of migraine.
It will be helpful if you make a diary of your symptoms and triggers that you notice over a few weeks, such as:
- What symptoms did you experience, and where did you feel these symptoms?
- When the symptoms occurred (for example, during the menstrual period or after stress)
- The frequency and duration of the attacks
- If you took any medications (long term use of painkillers may make the migraine hard to treat and may lead to a medication overuse headache)
The medical history may be enough to diagnose the migraine. But some cases may be unusual or complex and need to rule out other serious causes of headache, such as tumors, strokes, infections, and bleeding in the brain. To rule out these causes, your doctor will do a physical (neurological) examination and ask you to do brain imaging (CT scan or MRI) and blood tests.