If you find you have difficulty concentrating well enough to focus on writing an accurate journal entry while in pain, try carrying a small voice recorder to chronicle your pain clinic visits. When you are better able to focus at another time, you may use these recorded notes to recount your experiences for the purpose of creating your journal entries. Ask friends and family to keep record of your perceived pain in a small notebook, when possible, as well as make their own observations regarding your behaviors, emotions, obvious locations of pain (based on your posture or demeanor), other stated or discerned symptoms, etcetera. While it is challenging for another to determine your level of pain, due to many variables, it may still be beneficial for an observer at the pain clinic to make note of this. For example, a weakened (or strengthened) emotional state may affect one's tolerance for various pain levels (i.e.: a moderate level of pain may appear as if the pain is more severe, when in fact it may be more severe, or it may be just as equivalent as a usual moderate level of pain to the pain sufferer). Basically, appearances can be deceiving. The advantage of including an observer's perceived level of your pain is that pain is sometimes difficult to recall. A disadvantage may be emotional sensitivity, if a pain sufferer does feel he or she was in severe pain when an observer merely listed a moderate level in these notes. This can lead a chronic pain sufferer to feel as though the observer is indifferent to his or her emotional and physical state or that the observer lacks compassion for the sufferer's condition. Remember, each person responds to and handles pain differently. Your observer is probably not attempting to invalidate your feelings. It is more likely you displayed emotional strength and, therefore, a better tolerance to a higher level of pain.
Diligently maintaining your pain clinic journal entries will be difficult at first, most especially when you are already hurting. However, it can be an immensely efficient tool for your healthcare provider in properly diagnosing, treating, and assisting in managing your pain. It will become easier with time, and more than likely, you will find you require less descriptive entries as you uncover your medical needs through your early comprehensive documentation. Many conditions, long-term and short-term afflictions, manifest themselves in very similar manners, which can make identifying them quite a complex task. Development of your pain journal will assist in enabling the discovery of what is prompting your pain, which treatments are effective and which are not, which behaviors or triggers to avoid, and, hopefully, how to alleviate at least some of your hurting to reach a more tolerable pain level or comfortable lifestyle.
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