If you have a chronic illness or live with daily chronic pain you are physician may have requested for you to keep a diary of your pain levels so that he can monitor what activities or influences in your life can increase your level of pain. He may have recommended that you also record your sleep patterns and even your diet
Anyone who has ever tried to do this can find it overwhelming. However, it can be extremely helpful to both you and your doctor when you have an increase in inflammation or in a extreme flare. What caused the increase in pain? The weather? Something you ate? A new medication? A stressful event?
It is ironic while those of us who live with chronic pain they find it challenging to write down what we are doing all of the time, what we are eating, and how we are medicating ourselves, millions of people are on the social network Twitter are recording what they ate for breakfast, the fact that they have a cold, or when they're up working at 2:30 a.m. and on the computer. . . and they consider it fun!
If you have a chronic illness, Twitter can be an amazing tool to use as a pain diary. This social networking tool has been successfully used to help people maintain logs on their diet, exercise, and even the commitment to stop smoking. Why should we not use it to keep accurate records of our chronic illness and pain levels?
Here are 5 steps to put this into place:
[1] Create an account at Twitter just for your chronic pain logs. If you already have a Twitter account, make a new one, and let it remain private. If you look under "settings" you will see the option to make your account private, meaning that you will have to approve any followers before anyone can see your Twitter account. Since this is private medical information, we recommend not approving anyone. If you are already Twittering this can seem a bit strange because you typically want to increase the number of followers.
[2] You can now write your posts at any time. You are restricted to 140 characters, but this keeps it to be a less cumbersome task. You can always submit more than one post to describe a particular situation. Set up your account so that you are able to send text messages from your cell phone so you can make posts from anywhere, not just at the computer.
[3] If you don't know where to start, begin by posting about any major events or behaviors that are not part of your typical day, and how your body responded to them. For example, if you awake feeling horrible, ask yourself has the weather change significantly? Twitter the weather. Are you taking the same amount of medication as you typically do? Were you active or solitary yesterday? Post whatever information may be valuable to you and your medical team at any right in your treatment.
[4] Before you go to a doctor's appointment, log on to your Twitter account and print out the posts if your doctor would like acopy. Highlight any major changes in your patterns of pain.
[5] If you already use twitter for personal or business reasons, consider using a service that will post to more than one account at a time so that you are regular tweets that share where you are and what you are doing can also post to your twitter chronic pain log without any additional effort.
There is a large market for Twitter applications and it will continue to grow. It's likely that there will be many Web 2.0 tools designed for patients. Fancy applications will likely be developed to help you record your pain levels. But for now, you can have a comprehensive outline of the influencing factors in your life that may affect your illness or pain levels. And you can have it up and running in just minutes completely for free. Can't beat that!
Anyone who has ever tried to do this can find it overwhelming. However, it can be extremely helpful to both you and your doctor when you have an increase in inflammation or in a extreme flare. What caused the increase in pain? The weather? Something you ate? A new medication? A stressful event?
It is ironic while those of us who live with chronic pain they find it challenging to write down what we are doing all of the time, what we are eating, and how we are medicating ourselves, millions of people are on the social network Twitter are recording what they ate for breakfast, the fact that they have a cold, or when they're up working at 2:30 a.m. and on the computer. . . and they consider it fun!
If you have a chronic illness, Twitter can be an amazing tool to use as a pain diary. This social networking tool has been successfully used to help people maintain logs on their diet, exercise, and even the commitment to stop smoking. Why should we not use it to keep accurate records of our chronic illness and pain levels?
Here are 5 steps to put this into place:
[1] Create an account at Twitter just for your chronic pain logs. If you already have a Twitter account, make a new one, and let it remain private. If you look under "settings" you will see the option to make your account private, meaning that you will have to approve any followers before anyone can see your Twitter account. Since this is private medical information, we recommend not approving anyone. If you are already Twittering this can seem a bit strange because you typically want to increase the number of followers.
[2] You can now write your posts at any time. You are restricted to 140 characters, but this keeps it to be a less cumbersome task. You can always submit more than one post to describe a particular situation. Set up your account so that you are able to send text messages from your cell phone so you can make posts from anywhere, not just at the computer.
[3] If you don't know where to start, begin by posting about any major events or behaviors that are not part of your typical day, and how your body responded to them. For example, if you awake feeling horrible, ask yourself has the weather change significantly? Twitter the weather. Are you taking the same amount of medication as you typically do? Were you active or solitary yesterday? Post whatever information may be valuable to you and your medical team at any right in your treatment.
[4] Before you go to a doctor's appointment, log on to your Twitter account and print out the posts if your doctor would like acopy. Highlight any major changes in your patterns of pain.
[5] If you already use twitter for personal or business reasons, consider using a service that will post to more than one account at a time so that you are regular tweets that share where you are and what you are doing can also post to your twitter chronic pain log without any additional effort.
There is a large market for Twitter applications and it will continue to grow. It's likely that there will be many Web 2.0 tools designed for patients. Fancy applications will likely be developed to help you record your pain levels. But for now, you can have a comprehensive outline of the influencing factors in your life that may affect your illness or pain levels. And you can have it up and running in just minutes completely for free. Can't beat that!
About the Author:
Lisa Copen is the founder of Invisible Illness Awareness Week held each year in Sept and featuring a 5-day virtual conference w/ 20 seminars w/ 20 speakers. Follow Invisible Illness Week on Twitter for prizes and info. Blog about invisible illness on your site, be a featured guest blogger, meet others, read articles and lots more. Make a impact today!
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