The watch is for quick taps. The full migraine wizard with severity, pain location and symptoms lives on your phone, where you have a bigger screen and a keyboard. This article explains exactly what each device does.
Starting a migraine from the watch
Yes, you can start a migraine from the watch. On Apple Watch, tap the Migraine button (the pink starburst icon) on the watch home grid. On Garmin, press Log and pick Migraine. A short favourites list appears so you can pick a starting label, or tap Just log "Migraine" at the top (on Garmin: Just log) to log a plain migraine right away. The new migraine is saved with severity 5 as a starting point and the current time as the start time.
For a fuller log (pain location, symptoms, prodromes, notes), open MigraineMe on your phone afterwards and edit the migraine from the Journal tab. The watch is meant to mark "this is happening now" without making you fumble for your phone.
What the watch home shows
On the Apple Watch home screen you will see:
- A gauge at the top showing today's risk.
- A grid of six small buttons below the gauge.
The six buttons are:
- Migraine (a pink starburst): start a new migraine entry with severity 5.
- Trigger (an amber lightning bolt): log something that may have set off a migraine.
- Prodrome (a purple eye): log an early warning sign.
- Medicine (a blue pill): log a medicine you have just taken.
- Relief (a green leaf): log something that helped.
- Activity (an orange pulse line): log a walk, a chore, or anything else you did.
After you tap any button, the favourites list slides in. Pick from your favourites for that category, or tap Just log "Trigger" / "Medicine" and so on at the top to log it without picking anything specific.
On Garmin, the home screen has a single Log button below the gauge. It opens a list of the same six categories, then the same favourites list.
Two categories ask one extra question. Picking a medicine favourite shows a small amount picker, in the same unit that medicine uses on your phone. Picking a relief can ask how many minutes it lasted. Both have a Skip, just log option at the top, so one tap is still enough.
Ending a migraine in progress
On Apple Watch, if a migraine is already active, you will see a Migraine in progress card at the bottom of the watch home screen. It shows:
- The current severity, from 1 to 10.
- A minus button to lower the severity.
- A plus button to raise the severity.
- An End button for when the headache has finally lifted.
This is the fastest way to mark a migraine as over without reaching for your phone.
On Garmin, the home screen shows the active migraine and its severity, but you change or end it in the phone app.
Recovery if something goes wrong
On Apple Watch, if you tap a quick-log button and see a red Not saved message asking you to try again:
- Make sure your iPhone is nearby and switched on, or that the watch has its own internet connection. The watch needs a connection to save your log.
- Try the same tap again after a few seconds.
- If it still does not work, open MigraineMe on your iPhone for a few seconds, then come back to the watch.
On Garmin, a log made while the phone is out of reach shows Saved, syncs later and is sent once the watch can reach your phone again. If you see Save failed, try again with the phone close by.
If you accidentally logged the wrong thing, do not worry. You can remove it later from the Journal on your phone. Tap the wrong entry and choose delete.
A simple rule
Watch for the moment it starts and the moment it ends. Phone for the fuller picture afterwards.
