What Can I Do to Prevent Symptoms?
By Terry Mason
To prevent headache pain, you need to both
keep track of your symptoms and avoid your triggers.
Can Tracking Information Help Me?
Tracking your headache symptoms and what triggers them
will give you the information you need to reduce the number
of headaches you have. It will also help both you and your
doctor monitor changes in your headache patterns. If your
patterns change, you may need a different approach to
treatment and self-management.
You may find it helpful to keep a headache diary
for tracking your headaches. A headache diary helps you
describe your headaches and how they respond to treatment.
Your ability to describe information clearly is one of the
best tools you have when working with your doctor. It helps
ensure you get the right diagnosis and treatment for your
headache.
A headache diary also helps you sort out
symptoms so you can see if you get more than one type of
headache. Different headaches may need different types of
treatment. It can also help you identify triggers.
You might find it helpful to keep track of
days when you are headache free. How do you handle stress
on those days? What in particular do you do to avoid your
usual triggers?
Keeping a headache diary can be as simple as
jotting down your symptoms on a calendar when they occur.
Or you can list them in a notebook and indicate what you
were doing right before they occurred. You can also keep a
more formal log or diary in which you record not only your
symptoms as they occur but also your experience with your
treatments.
