Fibromyalgia: The importance of journaling

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Fibromyalgia wreaks all kinds of havoc on peoples lives. With it's many symptoms, side effects of meds. used to treat it and many other problems and disorders that go along with it, it's sometimes hard to describe and explain fibromyalgia, especially to your doctor. Keeping a journal can help with all those problems.

Journaling about fibromyalgia can also help you keep your doctor properly informed of what is happening in your life because of the symptoms of fibro. Journaling can also:

Track pain levels:

Tracking your pain levels is important for you to improve fibromyalgia. You should write down what your pain level is every morning and keep track of the changes throughout the day. Besides the changes, you also should keep track of what you were doing when the changes took place.

This will not only help you manage your pain by finding out which activities cause you more pain, but will also help you when you go to the doctor to try to explain your pain levels and what makes them better or worse. Your doctor will be better able to treat your pain if he has this information.

Tracking medication affects:

Having fibromyalgia can mean having to take different medications. This also may mean a lot of side effects. When taking your medication, you may have some mild side effects at the start that go away within a couple weeks. Then there are those effects that stay and are bothersome. These are the ones you should note in your journal.

Let your doctor know which side effects are bothersome to you. Most medications have an alternative that may not cause the same side effects as your having.

Track fibromyalgia symptoms:

This is where the other symptoms come in. Besides the pain, fibromyalgia presents itself with many other symptoms. These symptoms may not be the same for everyone with fibromyalgia. Headaches, GI upset, fatigue, numbing and tingling, confusion, fibro fog and depression are a few of the other symptoms of fibromyalgia, but there are many more.

This is important for your treatment. Your doctor needs to know what's going on with you besides the pain and sometimes this is hard to describe to him. If you write it in your fibromyalgia journal and take it with you to your appointments, not only will you be able to explain what the symptoms are , but you can tell him when they appear and what you are doing when they appear (this should all be in your journal).

Tracking what works and what doesn't:

When you at home and trying different remedies to fight the pain, write down what works and what doesn't. This can be helpful to you and your doctor. You can reuse this section time and time again. The next time you are in severe pain with a flair up, just check back in your journal to find out what you did last time you had a flair. If that doesn't work this time then write down new things you try and whether they worked or not. This is an invaluable tool for keeping track of everything you do for you fibromyalgia pain.

A fibromyalgia journal can really be a life saver. I even use mine just to vent. You know, like, if I am having a bad day, I will journal about it. And, I will also journal about my good days. I also try to determine why I am having these good and bad days from other things I have put in my journal. Your journal can be a great information tool for not only you, but for your doctor too.

• Explaining Fibromyalgia To Others

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