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
If you try to do this, however, you may have found it to be a cumbersome and overwhelming task. Despite this, the information that you collect by keeping a pain log can be extremely helpful in helping you and your doctor or locate what it is that could be caused in an increase of inflammation in for an extreme flare up of your illness.
Ironically, while those of us with pain may find it hard to write down what we are doing, eating, and how we are medicating, other people are on Twitter and are recording what they ate for breakfast, how they are recovering from a cold, and when they are up working at 3 a.m. in the morning. . . and thinking it is fun!
It's time for those of us with a chronic illness to get Twitter to work for us! This social networking tool has been used for dieting records, exercise logs, and even encouragement to stop smoking. Why not for chronic pain record-keeping?
Here are the 5 steps to do this:
[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] Now you can update your account anytime through posts that are 140 characters or less. Submit more than one post if necessary to describe a particular circumstance or outcome. Be sure to set up your account so you can text messages from you cell phone as well.
[3] If you are new to Twitter and don't know where to start, it's easy. Just post about anything you want in the box and click submit. You may want to began with events that are not part of your typical day and how your body has responded. For example, if you awoke with a lot of inflammation, you may ask yourself if the weather was unusual the night before? Did you stay out late with friends the day previously? Did you change your medication? What did you eat for dinner in the evening last night? Post any information that may be valuable to you or your medical team at any point in the future for your treatment.
[4] Before a doctor's visit, simply log on to Twitter and print out the posts if your doctor wants a copy. Highlight any major changes or influences in your patterns.
[5] if you already use Twitter for personal or business use, consider using a service that can post a message to more than one Twitter account simultaneously. This way your regular tweets that include where you are or what you are doing are automatically posted to your pain diary that resides on Twitter as well.
While there are bound to be some fancy applications for Twitter or other pain log tools in the future of Web 2.0 medicine, with a simple private Twitter account you can start keeping your illness records in just a few minutes at no cost. It's times like this we love the internet.
If you try to do this, however, you may have found it to be a cumbersome and overwhelming task. Despite this, the information that you collect by keeping a pain log can be extremely helpful in helping you and your doctor or locate what it is that could be caused in an increase of inflammation in for an extreme flare up of your illness.
Ironically, while those of us with pain may find it hard to write down what we are doing, eating, and how we are medicating, other people are on Twitter and are recording what they ate for breakfast, how they are recovering from a cold, and when they are up working at 3 a.m. in the morning. . . and thinking it is fun!
It's time for those of us with a chronic illness to get Twitter to work for us! This social networking tool has been used for dieting records, exercise logs, and even encouragement to stop smoking. Why not for chronic pain record-keeping?
Here are the 5 steps to do this:
[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] Now you can update your account anytime through posts that are 140 characters or less. Submit more than one post if necessary to describe a particular circumstance or outcome. Be sure to set up your account so you can text messages from you cell phone as well.
[3] If you are new to Twitter and don't know where to start, it's easy. Just post about anything you want in the box and click submit. You may want to began with events that are not part of your typical day and how your body has responded. For example, if you awoke with a lot of inflammation, you may ask yourself if the weather was unusual the night before? Did you stay out late with friends the day previously? Did you change your medication? What did you eat for dinner in the evening last night? Post any information that may be valuable to you or your medical team at any point in the future for your treatment.
[4] Before a doctor's visit, simply log on to Twitter and print out the posts if your doctor wants a copy. Highlight any major changes or influences in your patterns.
[5] if you already use Twitter for personal or business use, consider using a service that can post a message to more than one Twitter account simultaneously. This way your regular tweets that include where you are or what you are doing are automatically posted to your pain diary that resides on Twitter as well.
While there are bound to be some fancy applications for Twitter or other pain log tools in the future of Web 2.0 medicine, with a simple private Twitter account you can start keeping your illness records in just a few minutes at no cost. It's times like this we love the internet.
About the Author:
Lisa Copen is the founder of Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week held annually in Sept and featuring a free 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!
No comments:
Post a Comment