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.

Used over time, a pain diary can help you and your doctor understand the kinds of things that make your pain better or worse.

Here are some things to think about while you are using your pain diary:

• Where is the pain located? Is it throbbing, sharp, tingling, shooting, or burning? Is it constant, or does it come and go?
• Does the pain change at different times of day? When?
• Does the pain get worse before or after meals?
• Does the pain get better or worse with activity? What kind of activity?
• Does the pain keep you from falling asleep at night? Does pain wake you up in the night?

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.