Sometimes when one has chronic pain it is good if one can keep an eye on one's pain levels. This can be good for a number of reasons

1. When visiting a Doctor or specialist it is good if you can provide them with a graphical representation or not only when you pain was bad but when your pain was at it's least troublesome.
2. It helps to identify patterns that we as Humans in pain may not spot otherwise
   • How much do the pain killers actually reduce the pain by?
   • How long do the pain killers last for?
   • Were you aware that your pain is always at it's worst a few hours after you do your physio exercises?
3. It provides health care professionals with much more information that you can convey in conversation

Personal Experience

Around 5 years ago I had a customer built CMS which had at it's heart an in-depth pain level feature. It reminded me every 30-60 minutes to enter my pain levels and I had to remember to manually enter specific information such as when I ate; what meds I took; my sleep patterns etc and at the end (or whenever I requested one) I could print out a nice chart with all the information on it I needed. It included a legend that told the person viewing it what all the symbols meant (such as taking food in; went to sleep etc).

When I took this to my Doctor as part of the process of trying to figure out why I was in so much pain he was amazed and told my that this provided him with too much information to take in there and then but it would prove to be very useful. He asked if he could keep it to view when he had a spare ten minutes and after that he told me that it was part of his decision to send me to a specialist for an MRI scan.

The Plan

Well for this project I am going to re-create and expand on that simple tool I used back then. Planned features include

• A Wiki
• A link to the main input form will always be in the main menu
• A Google Chrome extension so that you do not have to have the site loaded in order to input data
• A medication reminder
• An API
• Export to PDF, CSV etc for portability
• Different Profiles (should you wish to keep back pain separate from say Neck pain)
• Personal profile so that you can get advice on your environment eg you need to drink more water
• Import data eg from a running device
• iOS and Android apps enabling you to both enter information and get charts etc when you are away from home (these are planned for when enough income has been generated to pay for them)
• Share or email the charts/graphs (handy to send them to your medical practitioner prior to appointments)

Reason for the site

In the future (app. 6 months) I may be having an operation to set me rouge disc in my spine back into place and pin it there. Currently I am experiencing severe pain resulting from trapped nerves. Part of the process of managing the pain is in my mind knowing all about it. Knowledge (as they say) is power. It helped me before to maximise on the things that made the pain better and minimise on the things that made them worse – I see no reason why it cannot do the same again.

Conclusion

I'm sure that you'll agree that this is a fantastic project and I can assure you that there is currently no such facility widely available on the internet that offers what I'm proposing.

If you have any feedback or think of any features that I have not come up with please feel free to comment below. I shall take all suggestions seriously and consider this to be my pet project for the foreseeable future.