How is migraine diagnosed?

A migraine diagnosis is achieved after a qualified doctor completes a thorough neurological exam, discusses our symptoms, and goes over your medical history and your family's medical history. There is no blood test and/or image study to diagnose migraine; it's a diagnosis of exclusion. This means other conditions are ruled out before a migraine diagnosis can be made. We have more information on diagnosing migraine in this article; https://migraine.com/blog/diagnosing-migraine/. Making the diagnosis a bit more difficult is many of us have waited more than five years to get an accurate migraine diagnosis. It's important to have this so we can get the correct treatment and learn all we can about our particular type of migraine and/or headache disorder and hopefully end the cycle of pain. This article discusses how long it takes to get a diagnosis; https://migraine.com/blog/how-long-did-it-take-for-you-to-get-your-migraine-diagnosis/. And Tammy has written a new piece about diagnosing migraine you can read about here; https://migraine.com/living-migraine/diagnosing-ichd-3-versus-icd-9/.