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 somewhat ironic that while we may find it a burdensome task to record what we are eating, who we are with, how much we slept, and how we are feeling, millions of people are doing this daily on Twitter. They write what they ate for lunch, if they have a migraine, and if they are up at 2 a.m. working. . . and they call it fun!
Now is the time for those of us who have a chronic illness to let Twitter worked for us! This social networking tool has been used to help people with dieting, exercise, and even encouragement to stop smoking. But it may best benefit those of us with illness, who need to record enough of our life to figure out what is causing an increase in pain.
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 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 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.
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.
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 somewhat ironic that while we may find it a burdensome task to record what we are eating, who we are with, how much we slept, and how we are feeling, millions of people are doing this daily on Twitter. They write what they ate for lunch, if they have a migraine, and if they are up at 2 a.m. working. . . and they call it fun!
Now is the time for those of us who have a chronic illness to let Twitter worked for us! This social networking tool has been used to help people with dieting, exercise, and even encouragement to stop smoking. But it may best benefit those of us with illness, who need to record enough of our life to figure out what is causing an increase in pain.
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 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 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.
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 Illness Awareness Week held each year in Sept and featuring a free 5-day virtual conference w/ 20 seminars w/ 20 speakers. Follow Invisible Illness Week on Twitter for cool 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!
