I am now seeing an Osteopath to help with my pain and he asked me to keep a pain diary for the next three weeks. I have written them in the past but I decided to do a bit more research on it first as I am sure I can add more to it. You know how you feel, but it can help your physicians if you can capture that information.
A pain diary is a written record of how your pain affects your daily life. It helps you to describe in detail how your pain has affected you over time. It also records what medications you took and which helped or did not help with the pain.
It can also help healthcare professionals to understand what makes your pain worse or what helps it. It is an essential tool to get the best help from the team looking after you. I have now put together a Pain Diary which you can download should you wish to use mine. It includes the following….
- Date
- Pain Score 0 -10, 10 being your worst pain
- Describe where your pain is and does it feeling burning, tingling, pulsating, or throbbing.
- How long did the pain last?
- What were you doing when the pain started?
- Describe your mood. Are you depressed, anxious, exhausted or fatigued?
- What medications did you take?
- What helped ease the pain?
- What was the pain score 1 hour after taking medications?
- Comments
I think this just about sums it all up. If you think that I could add something else to this list then please pop in into the comments section. It is important it is not too long but at the same time self explanatory on what you are feeling. You could add food in your comments section as some foods can aggravate certain conditions as does the weather.
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