How food triggers work in MigraineMe

Food is one of the most common migraine triggers, but it is also one of the hardest to spot on your own. MigraineMe does the watching for you. You do not need to memorise long lists or guess what was in last night's dinner. The app keeps track quietly in the background, and tells you when it sees a pattern.

This article explains, in plain language, what the app is looking at.

The five food things MigraineMe watches

1. Caffeine swings. Too much caffeine can bring on a migraine. So can too little, after your body has got used to it. MigraineMe notices both the high days and the sudden drops.
2. Tyramine. This is a natural substance found in aged cheese, cured meats, and some fermented foods. It is a well-known migraine trigger for many people.
3. Histamine. Found in red wine, smoked fish, aged cheese, and some leftovers. Some people are more sensitive to it than others.
4. Magnesium. This is a mineral your body needs. Low magnesium over several days is linked to more migraines for some people.
5. Missed meals. Going too long without eating can drop your blood sugar and bring on a migraine. The app has a "Skipped meals" trigger for this, which you log yourself.

How the app spots a pattern

1. MigraineMe quietly counts up things like caffeine and magnesium from the food you log, and flags foods that carry tyramine or histamine.
2. It also keeps track of your migraines and how bad they were.
3. Each day, it checks your totals against set limits and against your own last two weeks. A day that is far from your usual, for example much more caffeine, fires that food trigger for the day.
4. Over time, Insights compares those trigger days with your migraine days to show which ones really line up for you.
5. You will see what is pushing on your risk today in the Top contributors card on the home screen, and the longer-term patterns in Insights.

You do not have to do any of the maths yourself. The app does it.

Where to see your food data

1. Open MigraineMe.
2. Tap the Monitor tab at the bottom.
3. Find the Diet card.
4. Tap it to open the daily view, where you can see each meal and your daily totals.

If you do not see a Diet card at all, tap Configure Monitor at the top of the Monitor tab and switch the Diet card on. To make sure food data is collected, tap the gear icon in the top-left, then Data and Notifications. Open the Diet section and turn on the Diet switch.

Getting food into MigraineMe

There are four ways to do this. Logging food inside MigraineMe (the first three) is a Premium feature.

1. Scan a barcode. On the Diet screen (or via the Food card on the Log tab), use the barcode scanner to scan a packaged food.
2. Type it in. On the same screen, use the search box ("Search foods") to look a food up by name.
3. Take a photo. On the same screen, photograph your meal and the app picks out the foods.
4. Use another food app. If you already use MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, Lose It, Yazio, or similar, they can send your meals to your phone's main health app, and MigraineMe will read from there. See the "Connecting apps" articles for each one.

A gentle reminder

You do not need to be perfect. Even logging one or two meals a day for a couple of weeks gives the app enough to start finding patterns. Start small. The longer you log, the smarter your trigger list becomes.

If you ever feel stuck, write to us at help@migraineme.app and we will walk you through it.