FitBit and Migraine

The easier it becomes to track information, the more we want to do it. Although some people prefer to avoid the hassle, there are a growing number who are tracking as much health information as possible using their smart phone, and sometimes an additional device such as FitBit.

Apps such as Curelator and Migraine Buddy have helped many migraine patients track detailed information. It’s not that we want to look back and see how painful life has been over the past 30 days. It’s a way to find triggers, and possible solutions, to migraine attacks.

FitBit is one example of an “activity tracker”. It tracks things like how many calories you’re burning, how active you are in general, quality of sleep, the food you eat, heart rate, and more. As you may imagine, knowing and controlling your overall health can have a huge impact on your migraine symptoms. Here’s a promotional video for a recent incarnation of FitBit:

Using Power Sync for Fitbit, you can even sync FitBit data to your Apple Health data.

Kelley Nunn, blogger at My Migraine Brain, has used FitBit (read a bit about her tracking system here). Vera Sweeney, another blogger, has also written a little about using (and hiding!) FitBit.

The Mayo Clinic and Allergan will be working together with Second Opinion Health to test the use of FitBit and the Migraine Alert app (an upcoming app not yet available to the general public) to predict migraine attacks.

To find out more about the trial (which as I write it not yet open to participants), see Individualized Prediction of Migraine Attacks Using a Mobile Phone App and Fitbit (Migraine Alert).

You can request to try out Migraine Alert – just watch the video below for more information (it’s open to those with episodic migraine only at this point).

How about you? Do you use health tracking with your smart phone? Has it helped?