How to Track Symptoms So Your Doctor Can Actually Use Them

“How often does it happen?” “Is it worse at any time of day?” “Has it changed?” These are the questions you will be asked, and they are hard to answer from memory. A symptom log answers them for you. Done well, it takes a minute a day and gives a clinician more to work with than almost anything else you can bring. Done badly, it is pages of notes no one has time to read.

What to record each time

Keep every entry the same shape, so entries can be compared at a glance:

• Date and time it started.
• What it was, in your own words: “throbbing pain behind my left eye,” not just “headache.”
• How bad, on a 0 to 10 scale, where 10 is the worst you can imagine.
• How long it lasted.
• What you were doing, eating or feeling just before.
• What you tried, and whether it helped.
• Anything else that came with it: nausea, dizziness, a rash, a racing heart.

Also note the days when it didn’t happen. Symptom-free days are part of the pattern; without them, a log of six bad days looks the same whether it covers one week or three months.

How often, and for how long

Write the entry as close to the symptom as you can — on your phone, if that is what is with you. Notes written later are reconstructions. If a symptom is constant rather than episodic, a once-a-day entry at the same time (how bad it was today, what you could and couldn’t do) works better than trying to log every moment.

Keep going until your appointment, and long enough to show the pattern. For something that comes and goes over weeks — linked to a menstrual cycle, a work schedule or the seasons — that means covering several cycles. Don’t delay getting care to make the log longer; a short log is better than none.

What makes a log useful — and what makes it useless

Useful

• The same fields, every time, so changes stand out.
• Numbers where they help: severity, duration, how many times a day.
• Impact on your life, in concrete terms: “left work early twice,” “up three times a night.”
• A one-paragraph summary on top that you write before the visit.

Useless

• Long free-form journal entries that have to be read in full to find the facts.
• Gaps with no explanation — was it fine, or did you stop writing?
• Your conclusions in place of observations: “my thyroid acting up again” instead of what you actually noticed.

Using the log at the visit

Your time in the room is short — the average primary care exam is about 18 minutes.^[3] Nobody will read twenty pages in that time. Before the appointment, write three or four sentences on top of the log: when it started, how often it happens now, how bad it gets, and how it is changing. Lead with that, and offer the log as the detail behind it. Our appointment preparation guide covers the rest of the visit, and the guide to describing symptoms covers the words that carry the most information.

A free template

Our printable symptom diary has the columns above and room for two weeks of entries on a page. It is free, with no signup; print as many as you need. Afterwards, file it with the rest of your health information — the guide to organizing medical records suggests a simple system.