Keeping a Pain Journal After a Personal Injury

Chronic pain can be debilitating, and it can get worse with time. Treating pain is essential to getting better and moving on with your life. However, you need to develop a way to inform your medical providers and the insurance company about your pain.

Keeping a pain journal is something to strongly consider after a personal injury. It can be of great assistance as you track your recovery over time. Your doctors’ will be interested in knowing the amount of pain you are experiencing as your treatment goes forward. Furthermore, your injury lawyer will want to know how the pain sustained in your accident is affecting your day-to-day life.

Why It’s Important To Keep A Pain Journal After An Accident

The details of your injury can overwhelm your life in the days and weeks after an accident. It’s common for an accident victim to want to collect as much documentation as possible. The first things that might come to mind include police reports, doctors’ notes, and medical bills.

However, it’s important to keep records about every detail in which your life was impacted by your injury. A pain journal can help you keep track of how injury pain has affected you as time passed since the day of your injury.

You may feel as though a pain journal is unnecessary. However, all evidence regarding your accident and injury will be important as you work to get your life back to normal. A pain journal can help the following parties:

• Your lawyer - Securing damages after an accident requires demonstrating how your life has been changed for the worse. Illustrating your pain can help prove the limitations placed on your life after your accident.
• Your doctor - Doctors can use a pain journal to better understand how your health is progressing as treatment goes forward. A journal will allow for easy review of treatment that has spanned weeks or months.
• Your therapists - Physical therapists will use information about your pain as they make a plan to return your mobility. Your pain journal can help them know what treatment is working best.

How To Keep A Pain Journal

Maintaining a pain journal does not have to be a difficult or highly technical task. It also does not need to take too much time. It’s crucial to be consistent. Try to make daily entries in the days and weeks after your accident. Many people put numerous daily entries in a pain journal since they want to record how their pain affects basic daily tasks. Writing down details describing your pain can make a journal very helpful to both your physical and legal recovery. Be sure to note the following:

• The amount of pain or discomfort you experience everyday
• Specific physical details about your pain
• How your pain compares to the previous day
• What actions or medications are being used to help deal with pain
• The activities that are difficult or impossible due to the pain
• Details on how pain has impacted your life

You Can Get Help With Your Pain Journal

Speaking with a skilled lawyer as soon as possible after an accident allows for you to have many options for financial recovery. However, a knowledgeable and caring lawyer will also be able to offer a lot of assistance regarding your medical treatment. Personal injury lawyers work closely with medical professionals, and they know a lot about the injuries that their clients have. Your lawyer can assist you in making a pain journal that clearly describes how your injury has changed your life after an accident. This may possibly be valuable evidence in a claim for financial damages.

Medical professionals can offer many different approaches to treating accident injuries. However, it’s important for doctors and nurses to understand how your pain and injuries change over the course of treatment. This will allow for them to modify treatments as necessary throughout the recovery process. Be sure to speak with your doctor about how your injuries impact your daily life. Tell your doctor that you are keeping a journal detailing your pain, and ask them what important details you should include in this record.