Important medical disclaimer
Educational tools only — not medical care
Migraine Trail is not a healthcare provider, medical service, or medical device. These tools use information you enter and simplified educational rules. They may be incomplete or wrong and cannot examine you.
- Results do not diagnose, rule out, confirm, or predict any disease, headache type, trigger, emergency, or personal medical risk.
- Do not start, stop, combine, delay, or change a medicine or treatment—and do not delay professional care—because of a result.
- Labels such as “pattern,” “alignment,” “score,” “threshold,” “risk,” or “urgency” are educational summaries, not clinical findings or probabilities.
Discuss symptoms and decisions with a licensed healthcare professional who knows your history. For a child, involve a parent or guardian and an appropriate pediatric clinician.
If symptoms may be an emergency, stop using this site. Call your local emergency number or seek emergency care now. Never wait for or rely on a tool result.
Migraine Attack Duration & Phase Calculator
Calculate the headache duration and optionally map prodrome, aura, and postdrome into one episode timeline.
Time is not the only safety signal.
Call emergency services now for a sudden extremely painful headache, new weakness or speech/vision problems, seizure, severe confusion, high fever with a stiff neck, or a severe headache after head injury. Do not wait for this calculator.
Build a more accurate attack history
Migraine Trail helps record onset, phase symptoms, treatments, relief, and recovery so you do not have to reconstruct the timeline later.
The four possible migraine phases
Not everyone experiences every phase, and the phases can overlap. The headache-phase duration should be kept separate from the full episode duration.
Prodrome
Hours or sometimes days before pain
Early changes such as fatigue, yawning, mood, concentration, or neck symptoms
Aura
Often 5–60 minutes per symptom
Fully reversible visual, sensory, or speech/language symptoms
Headache
Typically 4–72 hours in adults
Pain and associated symptoms such as nausea or sensory sensitivity
Postdrome
Hours or sometimes days
Recovery symptoms such as fatigue, fogginess, or lingering sensitivity
Duration and safety sources
Frequently asked questions
How long does migraine headache usually last?
ICHD-3 describes untreated or unsuccessfully treated migraine-without-aura headache as lasting 4–72 hours in adults and 2–72 hours in children and adolescents.
Can the whole attack exceed 72 hours?
Yes. Prodrome can begin before head pain and postdrome can continue after it. The recognized 72-hour comparison applies to the headache phase rather than every phase combined.
What if the headache lasts beyond 72 hours?
Seek prompt medical advice. A debilitating, unremitting migraine beyond 72 hours may meet part of the definition of status migrainosus, but diagnosis requires professional assessment.
Does temporary relief restart the timer?
It depends on the clinical context. ICHD-3 status migrainosus criteria allow remissions up to 12 hours due to sleep or medication within an otherwise unremitting attack. Record pain-free intervals clearly.
Aura Pattern Checker
Compare aura timing and progression features.
Printable Migraine Diary
Record a full month of attacks and treatments.
Four Migraine Phases Guide
Learn how prodrome through postdrome can unfold.
Private by design: all date and time calculations happen in this browser. Your timeline is not sent to us.