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Keeping an illness diary can be a helpful tool for managing your health and tracking any symptoms or changes you experience. Here are some tips for logging the data you need.
Be Clear About the Time and Date
In your diary, it is important to write down the date and time of each entry. This helps you keep track of how your symptoms change over time. By keeping track of when your symptoms happen, and for how long, you can better understand how often and how bad they are. They could be caused by other things, like medications, which you can talk to your online pharmacy and GP about. Your GP can then use this data to figure out what’s wrong and treat you.
Accurately Note Any Symptoms
When keeping track of your symptoms, it can be helpful to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the most pain or tiredness you’ve ever felt. This lets you figure out how bad your symptoms are and how they change over time. You can also write down any other symptoms you have, like headaches, changes in your appetite, how you sleep, or how you feel. And if you have any other symptoms, like coughing, be sure to include those as well.
Include Medication when Keeping an Illness Diary
Around 70% of medications have negative side effects. So, it’s essential to record any medications you take and the dosages, as well as any side effects you experience. You should also note any changes to your medication regimen, such as starting a new medication or adjusting the dosage of an existing medication. Record any side effects you experience. This can include things like stomach upset, headache, or dizziness that happen after treatment.
Record Activities that Might be a Trigger
Writing down any activities or events that may have caused your symptoms or affected your health as a whole can be very helpful in the future. This is especially true for conditions like epilepsy, where the causes of seizures, if there are any, can be hard to find. This information is very helpful if you want to make changes. So, it can also help you make changes to your lifestyle or take other steps to lessen the number and severity of your related symptoms.
Keep Records of Treatment
Lastly, it helps if you write down all of your medical appointments, tests, and treatments. Also, write down the results and what your doctor tells you to do next. This is because if you see more than one doctor or specialist for your condition, having a record of your appointments and test results can help make sure that all of your doctors are on the same page. Then they can work together to make sure you get the best care possible and hopefully prevent future episodes.
Summary
Having an illness diary can help you identify patterns and is valuable to your doctor. You should log the times and dates of episodes, keep track of all medication and record any appointments.
