I built MigNo for my wife, who has had migraines all her life

By Ruslan Zaripov, founder · Updated November 2, 2026

MigNo was my wife's idea. She has lived with migraine for as long as she can remember, and she knows exactly what an attack is like from the inside, including how a bright screen makes the pain worse. She also knows how hard it is to answer a doctor's questions from memory: how often it happens, what you took, and what helped.

A diary only works if you can keep it at the worst possible moment. So we built MigNo around one rule: everything has to work while the attack is happening. Every decision below comes from her experience, and wherever research exists, I link to it.

Dark green, with no light theme

During an attack, a bright screen physically makes the pain worse. A study from Harvard Medical School found that a narrow band of green light worsened migraine headache significantly less than white, blue, amber or red light, and that the brain's response to green was the weakest.¹ That is why MigNo is built in dark, muted greens and never switches to a light theme. Text is soft gray green instead of pure white, and even the pain scale avoids glowing red and yellow.

Two fields while it hurts, everything else later

In the middle of an attack you do not want to tap through ten screens and answer questions. You want to tap once and put the phone face down. In MigNo only two things are required: how strong the pain is on a 0 to 10 scale, and when it started. That takes about 20 seconds. Location, symptoms, triggers, medication and notes can all be added later, when the pain lets go. Any record can be edited afterwards.

Barometric pressure, recorded automatically

For my wife, attacks often seem to follow the weather. Research points the same way, although the evidence is still mixed: in one study, attacks became more frequent when atmospheric pressure dropped by more than 5 hPa (about 0.15 inHg), and a recent systematic review found some evidence linking pressure drops to more frequent migraine.^2,3 MigNo records the pressure and its change over 24 hours at the moment you log an attack. After a few months you can see whether the weather really matters for you, instead of guessing.

A count of painkiller days

After years of migraine, the number of pills adds up, and some of them stop helping the way they used to. Taking acute headache medication too often can itself keep headaches going. The international classification calls this medication overuse headache and sets the limits at 10 or more days a month for triptans and combination painkillers, and 15 or more for simple ones like ibuprofen or acetaminophen.⁴ MigNo counts your medication days every month, so the number is in front of you and your doctor. It is a counter, not a diagnosis.

What you take, and what you have never tried

A doctor needs to see more than how often it hurts. They need to know which medications you take, how often each one helped, and which treatments you have not tried yet. In the US this matters in a very practical way: although the American Headache Society now recommends CGRP targeting drugs as a first line option for prevention, many health plans still ask for proof that two other preventive medications did not work before they cover them.^5,6 MigNo keeps the full history of every medication and every course of prevention, and puts it into a one page report for your appointment.

Your data stays yours

A migraine diary is health data, and we treat it that way. There is no account and no advertising. Records stay on your iPhone unless you turn on sync to your own iCloud, and you can export everything as CSV or JSON for free. The details are in the privacy policy.

Who makes MigNo

I am Ruslan Zaripov, an independent iOS developer. MigNo is made by me, with my wife as the first and most demanding user. If something in the app does not work the way you need it to during an attack, I want to hear about it: zxus777@gmail.com.

MigNo helps you keep a headache diary and is not a medical device. It does not diagnose and does not recommend treatment. If you have a sudden severe headache, a headache with fever, stiff neck, confusion, weakness or vision loss, seek emergency care.

Sources

1. Noseda R, Bernstein CA, Nir RR, et al. Migraine photophobia originating in cone driven retinal pathways. Brain. 2016;139(7):1971–1986.
2. Kimoto K, Aiba S, Takashima R, et al. Influence of barometric pressure in patients with migraine headache. Internal Medicine. 2011;50(18):1923–1928.
3. Impact of barometric pressure changes on the severity, frequency, and duration of migraine attacks: a systematic review.
4. Medication overuse headache, ICHD-3 criteria. StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf.
5. American Migraine Foundation. American Headache Society issues new migraine prevention guidance related to CGRP targeting therapies. 2024.
6. Neurology Today. New AHS statement on CGRP targeting therapies signals new era in headache medicine.