Headache and fluid diaries

A headache diary can be a good way to keep track of your headaches, symptoms and treatment. Recording details about your headaches can be useful for spotting patterns in when and where they happen which can potentially help you to understand why they happen. Understanding the causes of headaches can help you to prevent them or reduce their frequency or severity. Headache diaries can also aid doctors in making a diagnosis and help figure out whether your medication or other management strategies are helping.

Download a headache diary here

A headache diary can include information on lots of things, however, it’s often best to keep it simple and record basic information. This can include:

• Date and time  
• Duration (how long the headache lasted)  
• Intensity (how bad the headache was) on a scale from 1-10, where 1 is mild discomfort and 10 is the worst pain you can imagine  
• Description of the pain: e.g. sharp, throbbing, aching, one-sided, all-over, behind your eyes  
• What you were doing before the headache began: where you were (e.g. home/work/school/outside), what activities you were doing, and the position your body was in (sitting/standing/laying down)  
• What you tried to treat the headache: any medication you took or anything you did to try and relieve the pain (e.g. water, rest, darkness). also note whether/how well treatments work  
• Anything other notes that may be helpful e.g. other symptoms, any potential triggers, your stress/tiredness/hydration levels, menstrual/hormonal changes, any changes in medication, side effects from medication.  

Because dehydration is often a source of headaches, you may also find it helpful to keep a fluid diary alongside your headache diary. Keeping track of how much you drink and how much you urinate can help identify whether you might be dehydrated. The colour of the urine is another good indicator: urine should be pale and clear. If it’s darker in colour, then you could be dehydrated and this could explain your headaches. 

Download a fluids diary here