How to Create a Personal Injury Pain Journal

When you are in pain caused by an accident, especially the chronic type, you’ll do everything you can to avoid thinking about it. Doctors may tell you to stay active, go for walks, and keep engaged in your daily routines. All of these things can release pain-relieving hormones, improve your mental health, and serve as distractions from the pain.

So, when you are already trying so hard to distract yourself from pain and the consequences of an incident, why would you keep detailed notes about it? Notes about your pain kept in a “pain journal” can be a powerful tool to help your personal injury case if you have been injured due to another person’s negligence. This post explains what exactly a pain journal is and what it is good for.

What is a Pain Journal, and Why is it Useful?

A pain journal is essentially a daily diary in which you record the symptoms you are suffering from following an accident.

You can record which areas of your body are in pain, describe the level of pain using a scale from 0 to 10 (0 being no pain, 10 being the worst pain imaginable), and describe the nature of the pain. Is it tightness, burning pain, or sharp pain? Does the pain travel to other areas of your body, such as back pain moving down into the legs and feet?

It is also important to record not just physical symptoms, but emotional ones as well. Chronic pain and depression often go hand-in-hand, so recording the days you are feeling blue is important to help your doctor figure out if you need some mental health support on top of your other treatment.

All of the information you record in your journal is an important way for doctors to help identify the cause of your pain, provide you with the correct diagnosis, and recommend the appropriate treatment.

Pain Journals in Action: Modelling a Real-Life Scenario

Suppose a hypothetical client, John (based on the experience of real clients), was involved in a motor vehicle accident and suffered from neck and back pain, headaches, and dizziness.

John went to see his family doctor shortly after the accident, and the doctor advised him to keep a pain journal. John started to record his symptoms day-by-day and then brought the pain journal back to his doctor for review after a few weeks. His doctor noticed that while John’s neck and back pain were improving with time, his headaches and dizziness were not, and were in fact getting worse.

John was so engrossed in his recovery that he did not consciously notice these changes, and he would not have independently reported them to the doctor. Thanks to the pain journal, the doctor was able to figure out that John had also likely suffered a concussion in the car accident, and he was able to start John on the appropriate course of treatment.

How Pain Journals Factor Into Personal Injury Lawsuits

Pain journals are of great importance to a personal injury lawsuit as well. Say that our client, John, isn’t improving with time, and he decides to sue the driver who caused the car accident for compensation.

John has noticed that his apartment has been less tidy and clean than it was before the accident, and he orders take-out twice as much as before. Looking back on his journal, he realizes that the headaches and dizziness from the concussion have been getting worse, and because of that, he has taken to napping every day after work. Before the accident, he used that time to tidy and clean and make himself a home-cooked meal.

John’s pain journal can be useful to his lawsuit in many ways:

Symptom Tracking

It tracks his symptoms and shows how they progress over time. This helps his doctor in treatment, and it also helps John when he has to testify in his own lawsuit.

When giving evidence, it is important that John’s memory of how his injuries developed over time coincides with what he reported to his doctor. For example, let’s assume John has not been using his pain diary. His doctor’s clinical notes indicate that John told him on January 15 that he “feels so much better”, but his own independent memory is that he was feeling worse at that time. The defence will jump on the inconsistency here and use it to suggest that John is exaggerating or even lying about his injuries.

Recording his symptoms and how they change over time will help him remember how he really felt at the time, and make it much more likely that he will not make this mistake. It is a record of how the pain has affected his functionality over time, such as his increased need for sleep to manage his concussion. It is also evidence in support of the part of his lawsuit in which he can claim compensation for things like housekeeping help from a cleaner.

Identify Triggers and Patterns

A pain journal can also help “John” and his doctor identify certain triggers or patterns.

For example, John noticed that when he does not take a nap after work, his headache will be much worse the next day, and he frequently has to take a sick day. It is often difficult to be able to tell from employment records whether somebody took a sick day for a cold or whether it was related to their injuries.

Since John recorded his symptoms, his lawyer was able to go back and figure out how much time he had to take off work due to his injuries. This will help John get the proper compensation for any lost wages he might suffer because of his injuries.

Pain Journals as Evidence

A pain journal can also be used to show a judge how John felt on any given day and to explain how his symptoms developed over time. Seeing a person’s day-to-day handwriting about how much pain they are in can help to convince a judge that you were hurt and that you are entitled to compensation for your injuries.

If, for some reason, John’s lawyer does not want the defence to receive a copy of the pain journal and does not intend to use it in court, all John has to do is claim that it is protected by lawyer-client privilege. This is perfectly legitimate as long as John writes something to the effect of “kept at the advice of my lawyer and intended for his or her use in the lawsuit”.

Example Template of a Personal Injury Pain Journal

If you have been injured, think about keeping a daily log of how you feel. It should look something like this:

Injured in an Accident? You May Be Eligible to Pursue Compensation

Having chronic pain often feels like you have no control over your body or your life, but keeping a journal like this can help you feel that you are in charge of your recovery, and can be an important tool for your lawyer to use to win your case.

If you were injured in an accident due to someone else’s negligence, contact Preszler Injury Lawyers for a free consultation.

We’re here to help.