like this can put a cause to what may be triggering your health issues so that you can make the necessary adjustments.
“There’s a journaling that you do for yourself and hopefully when you are looking, you’re seeing trends, you’re seeing triggers and then it’s also how are you taking that information and then relaying that over to the health care professionals so that they can do something with it and understand it,” Welson-Rossman says. “I think it’s important to discuss the individual. Each of us has our own individuality of what’s happening to us and we need to be able to express that to the doctor and help the provider.”
5. Gives doctors a reason to believe you
Unfortunately, especially in the Black community, you may run into a doctor not believing you or wanting to provide you with adequate care.
“Not only is this an issue with the BIPOC community but also for women as well. Women and minorities make up an extraordinary amount of people who have chronic conditions. So it’s important to be able to give these groups a way to be seen as credible patients, to be a part of the conversation, to be confident to say look, I’ve got this data here to see what’s happening,” Welson-Rossman notes. “The patient is an important piece of this conversation. We have to build into this conversation of how we can empower this community.”
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“Having the data is powerful to a person who may have unconscious bias. For someone to come in and say this is what’s going on with me. I’ve printed out this thing. There’s nothing wishy-washy about it and it’s a shame that it has to happen but it is a tool, especially for people whose doctors might try to brush them off,” Dr. Becker adds.
Long COVID: How Concerned Should you be?
6. Helps you get better treatment for long COVID
There are a number of people that have experienced lingering COVID symptoms. Unfortunately, because it is a new condition, not much is known about it. Some doctors don’t even believe it exists.
“It’s good to have data. Patients can say here’s what’s happening to me here’s my graph and then the doctor will be like oh that is happening,” Dr. Becker shares. “Not that we go around doubting people but some doctors need a little more convincing than others and there’s nothing more than a little hard data to say this is what my experience is.”
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Deborah Fields was diagnosed with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), a side effect of long COVID. After noticing changes in her blood pressure and going through several doctors, she was able to come to a diagnosis by journaling.
“This is a case where journaling was the perfect case study that we have right now. And journaling did not stop after diagnosis, she needed to continue to use it during treatment because they were tweaking the medications, they were tweaking the exercise and she had to keep track,” Welson-Rossman shares. “And that information was really important when she was going back to her healthcare team during this time period and got her to the point where she is in this great state.”
How to start journaling
When you are journaling, it is important to remember to be as organized as possible. Remember to trust your intuition. Even if you consider something to be insignificant, make a note of it. It may not be insignificant to your doctor and may help them pinpoint what is going on with you.
When journaling, consider having answers to these questions that doctors typically ask during a doctor visit, according to Dr. Becker:
- When did it start?
- What makes it worse?
- What does the pain feel like?
“When you have trust in yourself, when you feel confident you’re going to advocate for yourself at least I hope that’s what the outcome is going to be and keep going so that you have a better health outcome and I think that’s something that we have to understand with chronic conditions. For so many of us it doesn’t go away,” Welson-Rossman concludes.
