How long do you keep a pain diary?
Your doctor will have you track your pain using the diary for a week or more. Then the two of you will meet to talk about what you have written in the diary. Your doctor may adjust pain medicine or suggest other treatments to try. After these changes are made, you may use the pain diary for another week, or longer if your doctor suggests, to track your pain and whether the new treatment is helping.
The diary is a tool that can help you and your doctor find out what works best to manage pain. You will use it as long as you both find it helpful.
What is a pain diary?
A pain diary is a record of your pain and its treatment. It can help you and your doctor find out what works best to manage your pain.
Information to put in your pain diary includes:
- Details about your pain, such as:
- The location of the pain. Note whether the pain is in one place or several places or moves from one place to another.
- What type of pain you have. You may use words such as aching, shooting, or burning.
- When the pain started and how long it has lasted.
- How bad the pain is. Use a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain you can imagine.
- Whether the pain is constant or comes and goes.
- Whether you have any changes in the pain.
- What makes your pain better or worse.
- Details about your treatment, such as:
- What treatment you used, and if you used medicine, what dose.
- How well the treatment worked.
- Any side effects it caused.
How do you use a pain diary?
Use the pain diary to write down the time and date of your pain episodes.
The diary helps you identify the type of pain you have by using a pain scale. The pain scale starts at 0 and ends at 10. In this scale, 0 is no pain, and 10 is the worst pain you've ever known. For example, if you have a "2" on the scale, your pain may be minor with sharp pain now and then, but it doesn't impact your ability to do things. If you have an "8" on the scale, you may have very strong pain that makes it hard to do anything.
The diary also helps you track:
- Any pain medicine you take and how much.
- Side effects of your pain medicine.
- Anything you did, ate, or drank that might have made the pain better.
- Anything you did, ate, or drank that might have made the pain worse.
Using a pain diary
Your doctor needs all the information you can give about what your pain feels like. Keeping a pain diary will help your doctor understand your pain and see how well your treatment is working.
Here's what to include in a pain diary.
- Describe your pain.
Write down when your pain starts, what it feels like, and how long it lasts. Use words like dull, aching, sharp, shooting, throbbing, or burning.
- Note changes in your pain.
Is it constant, or does it come and go? Do you have more than one kind of pain? How long does it last?
- Rate your pain.
Use a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you can imagine.
- Note exactly where you feel pain.
You can use a drawing. Say whether the pain is just in that one place or several places at once. Or tell your doctor if it travels from one place to another.
- Write down what makes your pain better or worse.
Note when you used a treatment, how well it worked, and any side effects.
You can also use your pain diary to write down questions for your doctor, the answers to your questions, and any changes that you and your doctor have made to your treatment. Be sure to include information about who and when to call if you have problems or questions.
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