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Pain Journals

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Chronic Pain
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Chartreux
Veteran Member
Joined : Aug 2006
Posts : 9664
Posted 5/15/2008 7:50 PM (GMT -7)
My Doctor recently brought up the subject of pain journal. Others have had questions on them too, and I hope y'all don't mind me bring this subject up as I have a lot of questions too...
1. How do y'all start your pain journals?
2. Do you write in it everyday or just weekly?
3. Do you write it or type it?
So sorry this is new to me and the doctor didn't explain it to me.
Any help would be appreciate and I sincerely hope it helps others here too...
Lots of soft Hugz to everyone and lots of well wishes for a painfree day.
Thank You
and I hope not to offend anyone with this, my apologies if I have!
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Freya
Regular Member
Joined : Apr 2008
Posts : 164
Posted 5/15/2008 8:38 PM (GMT -7)
I havent ever written in a pain journal but would assume that you write in it daily so that you can track your pain as much as possibe
I think as long as you have goof handwritting you could write it yourself(then again DR's make us work for our pain management, why not make them work to read it:):):) I'm kidding, sort of

I would start by saying what your pain was like in the morning, before you took your medication and when you went to bed (those are the questions they alwats ask me) and also if you do certain activities that increase or decrease your pain. I'm guessing they want to know exactly how your daily activites effect your pain.

They sound like a good idea, i wonder if my new DR will suggest one.
Hope that helped. I'm sure others know much more than me about it!

Freya
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Mochiah
Regular Member
Joined : Dec 2007
Posts : 450
Posted 5/15/2008 8:56 PM (GMT -7)
I was hoping Chutz was going to chime in pretty quickly here.....she outlines it perfectly.

I do keep a pain journal, but I don't do mine every day (I find that my depression is worse if I focus on my pain like that too much). I will keep it for 10-15 days. (The doctor never reads the full thing anyway, it is mostly for me to be able to point out things to him).

I mark my pain level at baseline, what I did (or didn't do) to make it worse that day, what have I tried (ice/heat/stretching/TENS), did it help? What medication did I take, how much did it help? Then I have one last entry for TODAY'S PAIN SCALE 0-10.

By doing this, I found that on average my pain had actually been an average of 6-7, although I had been reporting "oh, I don't know, probably a 4 or sometimes 5." It seems we (or maybe its just me) minimize our pain to others, even the person who is helping us with the medication.
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Twiggy2
Veteran Member
Joined : Jan 2006
Posts : 703
Posted 5/16/2008 2:44 AM (GMT -7)
Hello nice too meet you. I too keep a journal at first i was keeping tract every day but now it's whenever. I always make sure i date it this way it shows how long it has been since last jounal was made, i keep track of pain level, sleep or lack of, activites that may have brought on pain, medications old and new even doc appointments are a good idea, it;s whatever you feel you need to put in it. My family doc has never seen my journal but i started it cause i am applying for disablity and thought it would help and to keep track of things. Take care Twiggy2

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ryand
Veteran Member
Joined : Dec 2007
Posts : 639
Posted 5/16/2008 5:59 AM (GMT -7)
Chartreux:

Chutz will probably reply too, and I agree with Mochiah that she has great advice on this topic. I started keeping a pain diary too, and found a great one at the American Pain Foundation website. I hope it's okay to post that link here, but if it gets removed, just do a google search for the APF and then click on the APF Publications link. Hope this helps!

I printed this out and put it in a 3-ring binder that I carried with me throughout the day so that I could mark it when I noticed changes in my pain levels and how well my meds did or did not work.

Ry

Here is the link...

http://www.painfoundation.org/Publications/TargetNotebook.pdf
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Chartreux
Veteran Member
Joined : Aug 2006
Posts : 9664
Posted 5/17/2008 4:38 PM (GMT -7)
Thank you so much everyone. Your help in this is greatly appreciated. I now know how to start my first pain journal.
Thanks
Lots of soft hugz to you all.....
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Morgoth
Regular Member
Joined : May 2008
Posts : 177
Posted 5/19/2008 6:09 PM (GMT -7)
As I understand there are basically two kinds of pain journal, one meant as a psychological support to "write off" your pain, like a personnal diary;the other a detailed account meant to improve medical performance. I guess you mean the second one.

Taking into account the complexity of your medical situation, I think the best is to include as much information as possible. If your allergies for example are related to the weather, it might be interesting to include a weather summary as well.

I don't keep a pain journal as such, but all information is entered into various logs, usually kept by the staff. This is then used to draw long-term conclusions and make long-term predictions. To me it has proven to be extremely useful.
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Chutz
Forum Moderator
Joined : Jan 2005
Posts : 9477
Posted 5/20/2008 12:56 PM (GMT -7)
Hi all...

Sorry, but I was out of town. Soothing my pain on the beach with hubby. ahhhh...lol.

Looks like great answers above. These are very helpful especially to a doc who isn't convinced of your suffering. Good luck!

Chutz
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donajean
Regular Member
Joined : Jan 2006
Posts : 141
Posted 5/22/2008 5:18 PM (GMT -7)

Hello All!

Was wondering what everyone thinks about GoChi juice or Gogi juice for the Fibro?

Some ppl. say it helps them..

Thanks,

Donajean

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