One thing which really frazzles me at hospital and doctors appointments is when they ask what symptoms you’ve had or how you’ve been for the past few months. I suddenly forget everything and look helplessly at my mum hoping she has the answers.
You would think you’d easily remember the pain you’ve experienced and the different symptoms you’ve noticed. However as soon as you’re quizzed on them, everything seems to disappear.
I cottoned on pretty early in my chronic illness journey that this was happening and realised I needed to try and collate how I was feeling.
So I started writing it down and keeping a symptom tracker. I also started tracking what I’d been eating, doing and feeling to see if there were any correlations between them. Especially because I have a gut disease, I thought seeing what foods caused me more pain was important and that’s how I chose what I did and didn’t eat.
Why I keep track of my symptoms
Keeping track of my symptoms is something I find really useful.
It helps me see where I’m flaring, if there’s any consistencies through it and if there’s anything which seems to help me during it.
It also helps me answer questions which doctors throw at you. By tracking my symptoms, I can also come up with my own pain scale.
I don’t know about you but I really struggle to answer questions about my pain and what kind of pain I’m experiencing.
By writing it down and being able to compare one day to the next, I’ve gotten a lot better at explaining it to the doctors. It also helps me explain pain because I’ve written it down at the time.
There isn’t always a trigger, but there might be
I’ve put a space on the trigger diary on the free PDF for you because sometimes there is a trigger which makes you feel worse.
And if you know what that trigger is, you can work around it. You can also mention it to your healthcare team and it might answer some of their questions.
BUT it’s important to note that there isn’t always a trigger. Sometimes they come out of the blue which is why it’s good to know when they happen.
Do you keep track of your symptoms? Have you found that it’s helped you.
Leave a Reply