Living with Migraine
Take care of your migraine.
Sam keeps your attacks and your sleep in one place. You take the history to your next appointment.
Step by step: where migraine plays out, how an attack unfolds, what changes during it and where it is felt.
Brain and nerves
Migraine is a disorder of the brain with recurring headache attacks. The trigeminal nerve supplies the face, much of the head and the coverings of the brain.
Cerebral cortex / Trigeminal nerve, first branch
A human figure, seen from the front at an angle. The view moves towards the head, where the surface of the brain and fine nerve branches above both eye sockets turn light indigo. The cerebellum at the back of the head stays grey.
The attack
An attack can include early signs, aura, headache and after-effects. Not every attack has all phases; they often overlap. Untreated, the headache usually lasts 4 to 72 hours in adults.
Occipital lobe, visual cortex / Trigeminal nerve, first branch
The head seen from the left side. The brain and the nerve branches turn grey again and stay still; the cerebellum darkens slightly. A timeline below shows the phases of an attack in order: early signs, aura, headache and after-effects.
Aura and pain
Some people have an aura, usually before the headache: mostly visual, building up over minutes. Research discusses a slow wave of altered activity across the cortex as its basis. During an attack, chemical messengers make the trigeminal nerve more excitable.
Slow wave / Trigeminal nerve, first branch
Same side view, slightly closer. A narrow deep indigo band starts at the back of the left half of the brain, moves slowly forward over its surface, fades and starts again. The nerve branches above the left eye socket turn light indigo.
Day to day
The headache is often one-sided and throbbing, and worse with physical activity. The side can change from attack to attack. Nausea and sensitivity to light and sound often come with it. Sudden, extremely painful headache: call emergency services.
Worth discussing with your doctor.
Forehead and temple
The view pulls back to the head and upper body, turned slightly to the left. The brain and the nerve branches return to grey, and a soft indigo patch on the left forehead and temple throbs gently, as an example of where the headache is often felt.
Own simplified illustration based on the sources above.
The model shows the surface of the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the first branch of the trigeminal nerve around the eye sockets and forehead. The coverings of the brain with their vessels and nerves, the rest of the trigeminal nerve, the brainstem and deeper brain structures are not shown; the first branch stands in for its branches to the coverings of the brain. Colour on the brain and nerves marks where something happens, not pain. The wave is a stylised, repeating band, much faster than the real spread and shown on one side as an example. The soft patch on the forehead and temple marks where the headache is often felt; its gentle throb stands for the pulsating quality of the pain, not its rhythm. Adult male reference model; close-ups and the timeline are not to scale.
What Sam keeps for you
For people living with migraine who want a record for their appointments. Sam is not a medical device. It keeps what you and your wearable already produce and puts it in one place.
New attack entries for today include your sleep from last night and your HRV, if Apple Health has values for them. If you share your approximate location, barometric pressure at your location is added too, with its 24-hour change when an earlier reading exists. The numbers sit next to your entry as plain values, without interpretation, so you can look for a pattern yourself. Backdated entries do not get them.
For each attack, record onset time, intensity (mild, moderate, or severe), how long it lasted, aura, and symptoms like nausea, light or sound sensitivity, and whether the pain was one-sided. You can add a note. For new entries logged today, your sleep from last night and your HRV are added automatically, plus barometric pressure if you share your location, so there's less to type by hand.
Once a month, you'll get a short check-in using the MIDAS questionnaire - the same one neurologists use to ask about the past three months. It's not a diagnosis, just one more data point to bring to your appointment.
All of it can go into one doctor report as a PDF for your appointment.
Every Medical Program has its own doctor report as a PDF. You choose the period it covers and can share the report.
Sam is a wellness companion, not a medical device. The app does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness and does not replace medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical decisions.
Attacks, aura and pain are outside what a smartwatch can record. Sam keeps the rest.
Doctor report (PDF)
Sam puts your entries together as a PDF for your neurologist or GP. You choose the period the visit should cover: 1, 3, 6 or 12 months, or the whole record.
Doctor report: migraine
Sample viewReport covers
At a glance
16
Migraine days in the period
13
Migraines over 4 hours
Migraine days per month
The current month is not included.
Migraine days, last 30 days
Day with an entry
Migraine and duration
Diary
21 May, 06:50
4-24 hours - nausea, light sensitivity - sleep 5 h 40, HRV 38 ms, pressure 1004 hPa
17 May, 14:20
under 4 hours - nausea - sleep 6 h 30, HRV 44 ms
Self-tracked data, not a diagnosis.
Sam shows your values next to your entries. What they mean is something to talk through with your doctor.
You ask a question, Sam answers with your own numbers. For example:
The monthly report sums up your weeks - for appointments, applications, or simply your own record.
Monthly Report - June
Your Health Overview
Sleep
Stress level
Example values. Your report is based on your own data.
Further reading: what wearable data can show about everyday life with Migraine - and where its limits are.
What counts as chronic migraine? ICHD-3 asks for headache on 15 or more days a month for over three months. How to count your days.
Migraine diagnosed, what now? What your doctor checks next, what to record in the first four weeks and which questions to bring.
Migraine symptoms, aura and phases explained simply: how long they last, what to note for your doctor, and when to get medical help.
Learn how sleep disruption, stress, and daily patterns relate to migraine. A guide to tracking your own triggers and patterns with your Apple Watch.
Explore how sleep consistency and heart-rate patterns in Apple Health data may connect to your migraine - and how to use that information with your doctor.
Set up Apple Health to track migraine frequency, duration, and potential triggers. Learn how digital tracking supports conversations with your doctor and reveals your personal patterns.
Migraine vs tension headache: Learn the duration, symptoms, and triggers. Migraines last 4-72 hours; tension headaches are shorter. Discover when to see a doctor.
No. No wearable can reliably predict a migraine attack before it starts. Sam shows trends in sleep, stress, and activity that you might correlate with your own experience, but these are observations over weeks and months, not predictions of individual attacks.
In people with migraine, irregular sleep and meal times can raise the likelihood of an attack, according to IQWiG. What sets off attacks differs from person to person. Sam shows your sleep duration and sleep quality over time, and you can compare them with your own attack entries. What to change, if anything, is a question for your neurologist.
No, you do not need a second diary. Sam's attack diary covers onset time, intensity, duration, symptoms and aura, and you can add a note. For new entries logged today, your sleep from last night and your HRV are added, and barometric pressure too if you share your location. If your practice asks for its own form, use that one.
No. While an Apple Watch can detect some physiological changes (like irregular heart rate), it cannot reliably identify a migraine attack. Only you, the person experiencing it, can report that you're having a migraine.
Write down what you observe and share it with your neurologist at your next appointment. For example, 'I notice more migraines after high-stress weeks' is a useful thing to tell your doctor. Your doctor can help you explore whether that pattern is meaningful for your care.
That differs from person to person, and Sam cannot tell you. According to IQWiG, irregular sleep and meal times can raise the likelihood of an attack in people with migraine. Whether changing your sleep makes sense for you is a question for your neurologist. In Sam you can log your attacks and see your sleep next to them.
Sam's attack diary records the basics a headache diary asks for: onset time, intensity, duration, symptoms, aura and a note. The difference is that for new entries logged today, your sleep from last night and your HRV are filled in automatically, plus barometric pressure if you share your location. On paper you would add all of that by hand.
Yes. At the start you confirm that a doctor has diagnosed your migraine. If you only have headaches so far, you can log them in the Symptoms area of Sam, rated by severity, and show the entries at your first appointment. Working out what is behind them is for your doctor, not Sam.
You choose the period: 1, 3, 6 or 12 months, or everything. The doctor report counts your logged migraine days, in total and per month, and shows how long attacks lasted. It adds MIDAS over time and your latest entries with sleep, HRV and, if captured, pressure. Days without an entry count as unconfirmed.
MIDAS asks how many days in the last three months migraine limited you at work, at home and in your social life. The days are added up and fall into a grade from I to IV. Sam asks for it once a month and shows the trend in the doctor report. The score is not a diagnosis.
ICHD-3, the international headache classification, describes chronic migraine as headache on 15 or more days a month for over three months, with migraine features on at least 8 of them. Your care team decides whether that applies to you. ICHD-3 notes that frequent headache generally needs a diary of at least one month. Sam counts the migraine days you log.
Migraine, blood pressure, epilepsy, panic disorder, asthma, hay fever, acid reflux and gout are separate programs, each with its own log, monthly questionnaire and doctor report. There is no combined report. How two programs run side by side is described for migraine and epilepsy and for migraine and panic disorder.
A small observational study of 23 adults with episodic migraine found more migraine after the spring switch to daylight saving time. It cannot show a cause. Clocks change on 25 October 2026 and 28 March 2027 in the EU and UK, and on 1 November 2026 and 14 March 2027 in the US. Your attack diary shows your own weeks around the date.
Download Sam for free, connect Apple Health, and see what your data says about everyday life with Migraine - compared to your own baseline.
Sam is a wellness companion, not a medical device. Sam does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness and does not replace medical advice. For health questions or concerns, always consult a qualified medical professional.