Keeping track of MS
How do you keep track of your symptoms, triggers, factors, meds treatments? I use a combination of a paper journal & apps and then combining it with excel data sheets for analysis...(disclosure: I'm a research scientist) I wrote about my system here: https://stephaniezihms.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/keeping-track-of-my-ms/ But I was wondering if there are other ways to optimise or add to my system...
That's so very good! I kept a diary for about 8 years, just with a list of symptoms and a daily 0-5 impact scale for each. It taught me to see patterns for MS activity, which has helped me to manage better generally. The day came, though, when I saw that I wasn't learning anything new about how MS is affecting my body, so I stopped. Around the same time, I threw away all the MS books, autobiographies etc. I'd accumulated. I reckoned I didn't need other people's experiences to guide and educate me any more - the abiding issue is sticking with the correct regime! x PS I thought that questionnaire looked familiar, then saw it was from my hospital!
I was only diagnosed last Nov and so far this is helping me put the pieces together and on bad days I can just look at the data and detach myself a bit by pretending it's one of my research projects...I mostly read blogs or bits on here for advice if I have a question or topic...not too keen on filling my reading time with more MS things...so mostly read crime novels :) The MS questionnaire is quite common I think - I found it via the MS Trust website...