Medical Journaling

Writing things down can save you huge headaches.  You make a list before you go to the grocery store, you write down what you want to take on vacation or that week-long back-packing trip.  Without a visual reminder, we tend to forget little things that end up being very important.

Writing about your health does the same thing.  All too often I hear about people who have some sort of weird, mysterious illness.  They don't remember when it started, they don't know what makes it better, or what makes it worse.  They go to the doctor, expecting to be cured in a single visit with a single prescription, and when they continue to suffer, or their condition gets worse, they blame their doctor.

What a shame! Granted, doctors go to school for a long time to learn about medicine and how to heal illness. But no doctor knows everything, has seen everything, can read minds, can scry into the future, and they certainly can't look back into our past unless we give them some way to see into it.

This is where a medical journal comes in handy.

Let's say you notice that when you eat out at a certain restaurant, you end up with the trots. Just about every time. This happened to me, and I was pretty upset because it was a pizza place and I LOVE their pizza.  I tried to figure out what could be the problem.  Was it the sauce?  I tried pizza without sauce.  Was it the crust?  I tried just eating the toppings off the pizza and filling up on salad.  The next time I settled for a sub.

It seemed that no matter what I ate off their menu, I had a big problem when I got home.

I decided to be more scientific about it.  I took a small notebook with me (you see, I didn't want to stop eating there because I really did love the place). I would write down everything I touched, everything I did, even to the point of noting where I sat.

After a couple of visits, it finally hit me.  At that time in my life I had recently stopped drinking soda.  I didn't need the sugar, and I certainly didn't need the caffeine.  However, whenever we went to this particular pizza place, we'd get a pitcher of soda for the family and I would treat myself to a glass.

I was reacting to the sugar in the soda.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that I didn't have to stop eating at our favorite pizza place.  I just had to switch to iced tea or water. (no diet drinks for me...I won't even start with what those chemicals can do to you...)

Without taking detailed notes about the situation, I would never have figured out that a small change would allow me to continue to enjoy our monthly outing at the pizza parlor.

This experience made me realize that whenever people have an ailment that they can't seem to figure out, take notes about it.  Copious notes!  Your doctor will be really relieved that you can provide such a detailed history about your condition without trying to rely on an imperfect memory.

The next time you have a problem that doesn't seem to want to respond to a course of treatment, journal about it.  Many times you will discover something that seemed really insignificant, but can make a huge difference in the outcome!

Write on!