Medical history (history of illness) represents an important component in the diagnosis of migraine.
Family history
- Is there a history of frequent headaches in your family?
Social history
- What is your profession?
- Is there any evidence of psychosocial stress or strain due to your family situation?
Current medical history/systemic history (somatic and psychological complaints).
- Do you experience headaches on one side of the head or both sides?
- Do you have any hemifacial visual disturbances (flickering scotoma) at the same time?
- How severe is the headache?
- Does the pain radiate?
- How long does the headache last?
- Does the headache change in relation to the side of occurrence?
- Does the headache become more intense with movement?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is very mild and 10 is very severe, how severe is the pain?
- In addition to the headache, do you have accompanying nausea, vomiting, light and noise aversion?
- Do eye tears and eye redness occur?
- Do visual disturbances or neurological disturbances such as paralysis or sensory disturbances occur during the headache?*
- Do you have speech disorders during the process?
- How often do the headaches occur?
Please indicate if you have any triggers for the migraines (keep a headache calendar/headache diary if necessary)?
- Diet
- Cheese, especially its component tyramine
- Chocolate, especially its component phenylethylamine.
- Hunger
- Food abstinence
- Pleasure food consumption
- Alcohol, especially red wine (especially the component tyramine).
- Coffee
- Tobacco (smoking)
- Psycho-social situation
- Anxiety
- Stress
- Relief after stressful situations
- Sudden relaxation (Sunday migraine)
- Change in sleep habits (or change in sleep-wake rhythm) and sleep deprivation.
Vegetative anamnesis including nutritional anamnesis.
- Are you overweight? Please tell us your body weight (in kg) and height (in cm).
- Do you have a balanced diet?
- Do you eat a lot of cheese or chocolate?
- Are you sensitive to the weather?
- Have you been or do you regularly spend time at high altitudes?
- Have you been exposed to a time zone shift recently?
- Do you sleep regularly?
- Do you like to drink coffee, black and green tea? If yes, how many cups per day?
- Do you smoke? If yes, how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes per day?
- Do you drink alcohol? If yes, what drink(s) and how many glasses per day?
- Do you use drugs? If yes, what drugs and how often per day or per week?
Self history incl. medication history.
- Pre-existing conditions (headaches, neurological diseases).
- Operations
- Allergies
Medication history
- Use of hormonal drugs in women for contraception or menopause.
- Fenfluramine (appetite suppressant).
- Reserpine – antisympathicotonic; drug that inhibits the synthesis or release of norepinephrine; they are used in the treatment of hypertension; however, they have relatively many side effects, which is why they are not first-line drugs
- Other medications: for more information, see “Drug side effects” under “Headache caused by medications”
Environmental history
- Flickering light
- Noise
- Stay at high altitude
- Weather influences, especially cold; also foehn
- Smoke
* If this question has been answered with “Yes”, an immediate visit to the doctor is required! (Data without guarantee)
