Chronic Pain Support Group

Physicians and professionalsdefine pain as chronic if it lasts longer than three to six months and is persistent. It's distinct from acute pain that is a direct result of injury or trauma. This support group is dedicated to those suffering from chronic pain. Discuss treatments that have worked for you, find advice for your specific experience, and find support. You're not...

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Brain & Nervous System
/ Chronic Pain Support Group

Journaling?

noonetwo
noonetwo
i would like to do the daily dairy/journal. But every time I do, it is really depressing. anyway to journal that is effective in finding trends yet not detailed enough to hit you over the head. We all deal with crappy parts of our days,, crappy days, but seeing say a mnth or mnths of it all in print is too much for me. Any ideas will be gratefully appreciated. I need to track my food, nausea/V, vertigo, ear ringing. And a simple way to track location/severity of pain in neck, back, hips, legs, arms. Im wondering if anyone used a point scale and tracked with a graph as thats what im gonna try next.
Thankyou for any ideas?

Today I will be happy.
annettearizona
annettearizona
besides just keeping track of the depressing things,you can also keep track of the simpliest things which you are accomplishing
noonetwo
noonetwo
I was just thinking about seperating the pain issues into its own page using just #, sounds better and easier than a graph. Also it seems the pain issues are the most depressing for me. Just concentrate on one thing for a few months to identify trends. Ex. menniers. so journal only menniers related s/s, with an numbering system for pain areas seperatly. I did try to journal less often, but that didnt work for me. After a couple of rough days my brain is like mush, it all gets mixed up. I tried keeping notes but kept losing them, lol cats I think. I really like the idea of jotting down the good stuff, something reafirming in the midst of chaos.

Today I will be happy.
51percent
51percent
When I see my rheumatologist...and they really track pain.....he uses a body diagram so you circle the body part and give it a number from 1-10. But if you wanted to track your major pain, then give a column to each area on a page and then a number like they do on the pain scale with the happy to crying face, 0-10 pain scale.

However, may I suggest you also consider whether that old 0-10 pain scale is right for you. My 10 is incredibly high as it comes from the night after having both knees removed and the patient analgesia IV stopped working and I was left for 4 1/2 hours with no pain meds at all. Almost stroked out. So my 10 is really bad. So at the urging of my psychotherapist, I developed my own scale and I break down many of the numbers into tenths so a bad day with my neck might start at a 7(pretty well permanent there) and go 7.5 and 7.8 before reaching as 8. In fact, anything above a 5 is broken down into 10th. Doesn't freak out the docs so much and can show me when I need to up the drugs when I see a pattern. Lately, it's been both sides of my neck and if I don't intervene early enough, the pain evokes nausea so severely I start vomiting and then can't hold drugs down no matter how much Zofran I take. So I'm now starting the pain meds earller as long as I have it both sides.

So make room for add ons like pain is now both sides and not just the normal 1 side and then break down the severity into 10's so you can keep it in the scale but show it rising. Make sure to include time of day too and day of the week. My pain always gets worse on the weekends as I try to act normally with hubby.
Patterns can help us and our docs.

hugs...........Jen