Have you started using the pain scale yet? If not, check it out. Today's pain-free tip is to start keeping a pain journal.
Most doctors find it very helpful, and recommend it to their patients. If you're in the position that you haven't had a chance to meet a pain specialist yet (most of us don't until we've had chronic pain for many years... I met mine by chance while I was doing a pilgrimage to Santiago), starting to keep a pain journal now will enable both your MD and any future specialist to get a deeper understanding of your symptoms and provide you better treatment.
Typical entries in a pain journal would be:
- Date and place
- Pain levels throughout the day
- List of activities with times
- Amount of medicine taken
- Effects/side effects of medication
- Reflection:
- Did the pain limit your activities today? If so, how?
Try to keep it simple, even a very short entry is better than nothing:)
Contact CT Pain Foundation (email) to receive your own detailed Pain Notebook for free. The American Pain Foundation has a detailed Pain Notebook which you can download as a pdf and use the way it is. Or you can make your own, scrap book style, where you can paste in some mementoes of your patient-career, and hopefully someday you can look in it with wonder and think "Wow... I'm so glad that part of my life is over and I have no more pain today".
