Chronic pain can be undertreated and misunderstood because there are no truly objective ways to help nail down specifics – like how severe it is. We’re often asked to rate pain on a scale of 1-10, but one person’s 3 is another person’s 10. The subjective nature of pain and other factors can lead healthcare providers at a loss to understand and properly treat an individual patient's pain.

Identifying Cause Can Be Complex

Identifying what causes pain can also be tough. There are frequently multiple causes. For example, people who’ve been in severe car accidents, or suffered severe physical injuries in other ways can have pain resulting from those injuries for life. There can be damage to bone, soft tissue, muscles and nerves, which sometimes never heals completely or normally.

It’s only recently that we’ve come to accept that there can also be chronic pain without a specific, treatable cause that we’re capable of identifying with the current state of science and medicine. Doctors are the very first to admit that we have a lot to learn about how the brain and nervous system process pain and how non-physical conditions like prolonged stress and anxiety can cause or accentuate pain. 

Take Notes to Help Inform Your Pain Management Team

While we’re learning to better diagnose and treat chronic pain, keeping a pain journal is one of the things you can do to help your pain management team.

If your pain makes it difficult to write, get someone to take notes for you. It can actually help them to better understand your suffering and how it impacts your life and relationships. And if you have a smartphone, you can even voice record notes and convert them to text if you need to.

Seemingly Small Details Can Be Important Clues

Keep track of things like what time you woke up and how many hours you slept. Note tasks you were and weren’t able to complete on any given day. Rate your pain daily on a scale of 1-10. Note things that you think may have made your pain better or worse – like taking walks, changes in the weather, something you ate, how long you sat in an airplane seat or the position in which you slept.

These factors can help you and your pain management team to identify patterns and even previously unrecognized causes that can be key to finding ways to better manage your pain.

If this strategy for pain journaling based on an NIH protocol is too detailed, we urge you to do an online search. There are many journaling strategies and lots of resources on what to keep in a pain journal to be most helpful to you.

Learn More:

Pain Experiences Among Chronic Pain Patients https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6361316/
Pain Diaries Journals and Logs  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2326103/
Emotional Interventions for Chronic Pain  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3419371/