Doctors: Use This Tool To Diagnose Chronic Migraine

The journal Cephalgia recently republished a study from last year, showing the benefits of a new tool to diagnose chronic migraine.

There may be great hope for tools such as blood tests to detect various types of migraine in the future, but today it is the interview with the doctor that will give you your diagnosis. Often this is with a family doctor, who can’t be expected to be an expert on everything (although we greatly value her general knowledge and experience).

So it is helpful to have a simple, objective way to correctly diagnose chronic migraine in the majority of cases.

Enter ID-CM, otherwise known simply as Identify Chronic Migraine.

Many well known doctors from around the world were involved in studying ID-CM, such as Richard Lipton, David Dodick, Dawn Buse, and Werner Becker.

ID-CM, according to the study, is remarkably efficient at diagnosing chronic migraine. It correctly catches the vast majority of actual chronic migraine cases.

In addition, it’s simple to use. A patient can even fill it out on their own, and bring it to their doctor.

The study authors explain the value of ID-CM:

The simplicity and accuracy of ID-CM will enable health care professionals with or without training in neurology, pain, or headache to correctly identify the majority of patients with migraine or CM.

You can find ID-CM online. Again, remember that this is a tool to help patients and doctors – working together. You need to confirm this diagnosis with your doctor, preferably a doctor who knows your medical history, because she can rule out possible other causes of your symptoms. This is very important. ID-CM is not intended to be used by patients to diagnose themselves without any doctor involvement.

To read the study, see Improving the detection of chronic migraine: Development and validation of Identify Chronic Migraine (ID-CM)

To see the tool, and try it out, click here: Identifying Chronic Migraine (ID-CM) Screener.