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iPhone Pain Diary

My personal preference is to use an iPhone pain diary rather than a computer based one as I need to enter the information right away. The longer I wait before recording an episode of pain the more inaccurate the record gets to be.

To date I've used three different phone diaries and am recommending one called My Pain Diary (£2.39 - it comes with a free try-out version).

The diary looks like this.

Screenshots

The opening screens allow you to enter all the information that your doctor will need. That is: -

• The intensity of the pain - enter this on a scale of 0 - 10 with 0 meaning no pain and 10 the worst pain imaginable.
• The location of the pain - the options here are pretty imprecise so add your own - be as precise as possible
• The type of pain - you can chose from a list (which includes stabbing, burning, sharp and dull) or you can add a description of your own)
• Anything that triggered the pain - I added sleep and carrying heavy things to the list provided
• Any remedy - medication, sleep, rest or stretching are given but I added heat and ice packs.
• Finally there is a notes field - make use of this it - it really helps you remember.

Once you've made a few entries in your pain diary you can view your history and look for patterns such as time of day or different events that trigger an episode. Does your pain come on when you've walked a long way? Is it worse in the morning or night? This will only become clear after a few weeks of use. I found it particularly useful to record the intensity of the pain which I know I tend to downplay when I see my doctor.

The icing on the cake is that you can then print out or email a copy to give to your doctor.

The only downside I can see is that you can't backdate the date and time of entries. So you do have to keep on top of entering data.

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