Keeping a diary provides control and aids in treatment.
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If you suffer from pain you know the impact it can have on your life, and your loved ones, when it's not under control.
Keeping a diary provides you with this control. ReliefInsite is designed specifically for this purpose.
ReliefInsite enables you to receive better and faster treatment for your pain by helping you track and report key aspects of it to your doctor and others involved in your care.
- Pain affects each of us differently.
- Research shows that tracking pain is one of the best things you can do to treat it.
- When it comes to pain management the rule is: better communication = better diagnosis and treatment.
The Facts (and realities as we see them)
- Doctors are pressed for time.
- Pain is often hard to describe and track symptomatically. This can make it hard to diagnose and treat.
- A regular visit to the doctor – without advance preparation – is often not enough to get to the core of what's causing pain or to determine if there are better treatment options.
- Medical research shows that self-reporting plays a critical role in pain assessment and is essential to providing better and faster treatment.
How it works
- The ReliefInsite diary is easy-to-use and provides a step-by-step approach.
- As shown in the illustration, entries are automatically organized into reports that can be printed and given to your doctor or securely shared online.
- ReliefInsite creates a history of your condition presented in charts and graphs that are easy to understand.
- All diary records are controlled by you and can be accessed at any time from our secure website.
Read what users say about ReliefInsite, click here.
Choose from our Free or Premium diary. To compare click here.
Our Mission
Our mission is to help people with pain receive better and faster treatment so they can live better and more productive lives.
Our way of achieving this is to give patients a superior way of communicating with their doctors, nurses and other caregivers. We help patients – working with their healthcare providers – to find the best way forward.
ReliefInsite service modules. [Back to top]
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Body Map. Pain location and intensity. (You can track 3 different pain levels.) |
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Characteristics. Describe your pain. (For female users a menses tracking tool is included.) |
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Symptoms. How you feel, including any effects of medication. |
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Lifestyle. How your condition is impacting work, activities, lifestyle, etc. |
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Medications & Treatment. Record compliance and your satisfaction level. |
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Notes. Available throughout the diary to record, in free text, any comments. |
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Reminders. Up to 3 per day. Set to the hour e-mail reminders. |
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Reports+ Provider Ready Report (PRR) and customizable reports. View, print or save on your computer. |
Do you suffer from pain (or know somebody who does)? [Back to top]
It is not normal to live and not experience pain. Whether physical or emotional, pain is a natural part of living. It is the body's alarm system that tells us to get help.
Whether acute (short term) or chronic (long term), it is important that pain is reported and acted upon. If untreated or under treated, pain can get out of control and cause significant and unnecessary physical, emotional, and financial harm. It can also decrease the body's immune response system, making you more susceptible to disease. As one specialist in pain management said: "Pain can kill you."1
It was long believed that the best way to treat pain was to be strong – to stand up to it and be brave. Unfortunately, this approach can cause complications and can result in pain that lasts long after the injury that caused it has healed.
Medical science now tells us that it is important to treat pain early and aggressively. It is for this reason that doctors and other healthcare providers are required to ask about your pain and that you, as a patient, are required to report it.
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Yes, if you want to have your pain properly treated you have responsibilities too. It is not as simple as showing up at your doctor's office. Not anymore. You need to be prepared if you want to get the best results possible.
The following guidelines have been prepared by JCAHO (the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) and serve as a good example of recent changes in the healthcare system that require patients to take a bigger role in managing their health.
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Ask your doctor or nurse what you should expect regarding pain and pain management.
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Discuss pain relief options with your doctor and nurse.
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Work with your doctor and nurse to develop a pain management plan.
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Ask for pain relief when pain first begins.
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Help your doctor and nurse to assess your pain.
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Tell your doctor or nurse if your pain is not relieved.
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Tell your doctor or nurse about any worries you have about taking pain medication.
JCAHO (commonly called "Jayco") is an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits about 60% (15,000) healthcare organizations and programs in the US.
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What the experts say about effective pain management. [Back to top]
Deal with your pain early and be pro-active in reporting it. This is the recommendation of JCAHO and the American Pain Society (APS). APS has taken this one step further by calling pain the 5th vital sign (after temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and respiration) in order to draw greater attention to it.2
If you suffer from chronic pain, as do some 50 million Americans, you should be recording your pain at regular intervals to track improvement, deterioration, or treatment-related complications.
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About acute and chronic pain [Back to top]
If you recently had an accident and/or underwent surgery it is possible you are experiencing acute pain. Presumably you will recover fully if you follow your doctor's orders. But what if your pain continues? What if you are still hurting after your pain medication runs out? Tracking your pain at this stage, if not earlier, can provide you and your doctor valuable insight into what is causing it, and how best to treat it.
Chronic pain is pain that extends beyond the normal period of healing. Unfortunately, when acute pain is not properly treated from the outset it can result in chronic pain and its emotional, economic and physical impact can multiply.
Chronic pain is often the result of certain diseases, such as diabetes or endometriosis. Unlike acute pain, the treatment of chronic pain is usually more complex and requires patients to take an active role in the treatment program. The ongoing use of a diary helps patients and doctors to better monitor progress and to determine what is proving effective.
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Make the most of your limited time with your doctor. [Back to top]
Your time with your doctor is usually very limited. If you want to make the most of it, and get optimal treatment for your pain, you need to be prepared. If you are not prepared, chances are many issues of importance to you will not be covered. A recent study found that only 11% of patients have all their concerns addressed during a visit to their doctor. Many important matters that can directly affect your health are often not discussed.
Because pain affects each of us differently it is important to document it. Visiting your doctor unprepared, without details of your pain and related symptoms, can result in misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment.
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Definition: A pain diary is an individual's record of their pain and related information, such as pain characteristics, symptoms, medications and treatment, and lifestyle. Depending on the individual's condition and needs, diary entries can be made as often as three times a day or as seldom as once a month.
Keeping a diary has proven to be the most effective means for communicating pain.
Pain is subjective and varies from individual to individual. For this reason, studies have found that pain diaries play a critical role in diagnosis and treatment.3
ReliefInsite provides a secure, easy and convenient means for recording pain and related information in a way that is meaningful to you and your doctor. Your entries are automatically organized into reports that you can print and give to your doctor. You can also share your diary reports online with your doctor, as well as family members and friends.
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Paper vs. Electronic Diaries [Back to top]
The limitations of paper diaries
There are many paper pain diaries in use today. Unfortunately, they have limitations:
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Paper diaries can be accidentally altered, damaged or lost.
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It is difficult to share paper diaries with others and to update them as your condition changes.
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Paper diaries cannot be effectively organized into reports, charts, graphs, notes etc. to provide a continuous and comprehensive overview of your condition.
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Paper diaries cannot be time-stamped, which means that the exact date and time of entries is not recorded. This presents a problem for many healthcare professionals as it is difficult to determine when entries were made.4 From a medical perspective, not knowing when entries were made can greatly impact the usefulness of the information reported.
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Paper diaries cannot be easily integrated into electronic medical records.
The advantages of electronic diaries (like ReliefInsite)
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Electronic diaries automatically time-stamp all entries, giving both the patient and doctor a reliable and verifiable record of when they were made.
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The information recorded is always integrated with past entries to form a single, long-term, and detailed overview of your condition.
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Electronic diaries make it possible to share up-to-date reports with doctors, family members, friends and others caregivers.
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Securely store and access your data from anywhere and at all times.
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Summary reports are generated in charts, graphs, body map images and notes. These can be attached to medical records, either in print or electronic form, or saved by you as a personal health record.
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Why JCAHO and APS are promoting pain management. [Back to top]
Both organizations have found that, if not properly treated, pain can cause unnecessary harm that can have a long-term and costly impact on both the patient and the healthcare system. With pain costing Americans over $100 billion each year the concerns of JCAHO and APS are well founded.
We recommend the following two reports.
Pain: Current Understanding of Assessment, Management and Treatments
developed by NPC as part of a collaborative project with JCAHO
Improving the Quality of Pain Management Through Measurement and Action
developed by JCAHO as part of a collaborative project with NPC
For a detailed clinical look at Pain Management we recommend Pain Management: Hot Topics by Edgar Ross, M.D.
This book can be found at: Amazon.com.
ReliefInsite is a privately held company and independent of any supplier of healthcare products or services. User Personal Health Information is not shared, sold, or disclosed to outside organizations or individuals, subject to the terms of our Privacy Policy.
Footnotes
This site is published by ReliefInsite, which is solely responsible for its content. Using the services and information on this site is subject to our Legal Notice. Please also review our Privacy Policy. This information is intended for the use of our users, subscribers, and healthcare professionals in the United States. ReliefInsite.Com, LLC recognizes that the Internet is a global communications medium; however, laws, regulatory requirements and information practices vary from country to country. The services provided here may not be appropriate for use outside of the United States.
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