We all get headaches at some point in our day to day lives. They are usually nothing serious and go away after a little while. However, dealing with persistent severe headaches can be a symptom of a much more serious issue and you would definitely want to tell your doctor.
But how can your doctor properly diagnose you if you do not keep track of how frequent your headaches are? That is a problem that a new app known as BonTriage seeks to solve for you.
What is this app all about? Is it helpful for those dealing with frequent headaches? Let’s find out!
Introduction to BonTriage
BonTriage is both a mobile application and a website created by a trio of headache experts with PhDs. After checking the resumes of the doctors behind this concept, it lends a lot of credibility to BonTriage. Anyways, the purpose of the app / website is to help you map your headache occurrences.
Based on the data that you put into the app / website, it will compile a detailed report of your headache activity that can then be shown to your doctor. This will help your doctor to be able to diagnose what is wrong with you and what can be done to treat your symptoms.
Why Do We Get Headaches?
It is a question that is asked very frequently (as you can tell by Googling the question and seeing all of the results that show up). Despite it being a frequently asked question, you are not likely to find a single satisfying answer. That is because headaches come in all shapes and sizes so to speak. There are lots of different things that end up causing headaches – not to mention there are various kinds of headaches that one can experience.
I guess a simple basic answer to the question is that when you experience a headache, it is your body basically telling you that something is not quite right. Perhaps your surroundings have changed from what your body is used to.
Even if you think that nothing has changed, a headache could be caused by a change that you may not notice, such as a hormonal imbalance. Or, a headache could be caused by you not getting enough sleep. Your body tends to overreact about simple changes and send out strong pain signals which your brain picks up. Thus, a headache is born.
This is why the report compiled by BonTriage could prove beneficial. You will be able to report how frequent your headaches, along with any accompanying changes in your surroundings or daily routine or whatever. This information will help your doctor to be able to determine what is causing your headaches so that you can figure out how to stop them.
Did you know that WebMD estimates that there are over 100 different causes of headaches? A simple brain scan will not be able to pinpoint the exact cause – it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. This is why keeping track of your daily routine and your headache occurrences via an application or website like BonTriage would serve a huge benefit.
The Functionality of BonTriage
The benefits of an application like BonTriage depend on the actual functionality of the app, of course. So, how exactly does it work?
1. Set Up and Assessment
The first time that you open the BonTriage application on your mobile device, you will be greeted with a some questions about your headaches. These are simple questions that should take no more than 5 minutes to answer. Based on your answers, you will then be provided an in depth review of your situation.
The first couple questions are really simple and ask for information like how old you are, what gender you are, when you first started getting headaches, and if the severity and / or frequency of your headaches has increased recently.
Once those questions are out of the way, you are confronted with some more pointed questions that delve deep into your headache conditions – questions that ask you how long it usually takes for your headaches to get to maximum pain levels, how often you have to deal with these headaches each month, and where on your head you experience the most painful headaches.
These may sound overwhelming, but when you are actually answering them on the application, you will find that they are not and you will be done with them in no time!
Also, if you have got some more time to spare and want to generate an even more in depth analysis of your condition, there are other groups of questions you can answer as well. These questions are far more specific and will require about a half hour to complete. They are not required to generate the initial report, though.
One last thing I should note is that you are better off answering these questions on the application platform as opposed to the BonTriage website. The website and the application do not sync up all that quickly. Since you need to answer the first group of questions to be able to use the app for daily recording, it would be best to just answer those questions on the app instead of waiting for the platforms to sync up.
2. Daily Recording
Once you have gotten through those questions and have configured a profile for yourself, it is time to utilize the main functionality of the app – being able to record your daily routine. The application allows you to record certain parts of your routine such as:
- Amount of time that you slept during the night
- Amount of time you spent getting physical activity
- The foods you have eaten
- The drugs (whether prescription or OTC) that you have taken
- Any other factors of your daily routine that you think may be causing your headaches (examples include anxiety and a change in surroundings)
There is a lot of customization that you can do with this application to make sure that it is recording everything that you want it to record so that you can provide an extensive report to your doctor. If certain conditions change, you are able to go back and edit any past submissions that you made.
3. Graphs, Graphs, and More Graphs!
Once you start recording everything you want to record, the application will begin generating various graphs that can show possible correlations between daily activities and headache occurrences. The more information you input, the more precise the data on the graphs will be and the more likely that your doctor will be able to pinpoint what is causing your headaches.
User Testimonials
This is where we experience the first bump in the road with BonTriage. It is a new app so you are not going to find a whole bunch of user testimonials on it. In fact, right now there are only two testimonials for it and they are not all that positive.
One user gave the BonTriage app three out of five stars and said that they had some difficulty inputting all of the data that they wanted to put in. They also reported that the app had various bugs and other snags that made using the app a pain.
The second testimonial contained a two out of five stars rating and said that the app recorded that their headaches were “ongoing” despite the fact that this was not the case.
BonTriage Review Summary
It is understandable that a new app is going to come out with some bugs and glitches. Even the best made apps go through this so I am not going to knock off a whole lot of points for that. Hopefully the three experts behind this app have some solid app programmers on their team to work out these kinks so that the app does not receive more poor reviews.
As far the premise of the app goes, I really like it. It is not unique in its premise though, there are other more tenured apps out there that offer similar benefits. However, not many apps can say that they have three renowned headache experts on their team and this is what really sets BonTriage apart.
I do think that if you are sick of nagging headaches and want to do something about them, trying BonTriage out would not be a bad idea. There are no fees to use it so even if you end up not liking BonTriage, you are not losing anything except a few minutes of your time. And if you end up trying it out and liking it, now you have something that will chart your daily activities and headache occurrences that you can show your doctor on your next visit.
If the app does give you a hard time, you could always try one of its alternatives and see how they work for you until BonTriage fixes its issues. Trust me, you do not just want to sit around and do nothing while your head is pounding. Take action to determine the cause(s) and stomp them out.
