because i have an absurd number of chronic pain people on my flist

[phinnia]

I'm noticing my breakthrough pain getting worse. I made an appointment with my doctor in five weeks, figuring I can chart the pain between now and then to get a better idea of whether i need to increase my methadone or not. Anyone have any tips or tricks or handy ways to do that other than the scribble down semi-legibly in a notebook method?

<3

Comments

[the_xtina]

I'm torn between suggesting using Google Spreadsheet and just tracking time and scale of 1-10 (with a notes field if you need explainy) and writing you a Windows VB script that'd pop up a dialog box every n timeunits asking for the same information and writing it to a file.

(I am so in high distracted mode today.)

[ecwoodburn]

Uh, Twitter? Tweet when pain level changes, up or down, with whatever other notes you need to make. Collate the next day into a Word/text document. Simple and uses a tool you're already using on a regular basis.

[anahcrow]

i had some body charts that could be printed out or altered in a graphics program. i used them to bring in to the dr. wrote down times and levels and circled areas on the body, etc. i'll try and find that.

[miintikwa]

I used Excel when I needed to.

[rusted_halo]

I use Excel to track my migraines. It's nice because I can make it any way I want. I have columns for every sort of trigger, another column for pain level (1-10), a column for pain type (sharp, dull, throbbing, stabbing, etc), columns for each of my medications to indicate which cocktail I took, and a column for notes where I can jot down any random thing I need to. At first I had one for every single day with the times down the side, but now I do a week on each sheet. If they get worse in either frequency or intensity, I revert to tracking hourly/daily instead of daily/weekly.