Guides · 5 min read
What a symptom diary should contain for your doctor
The consultation runs on four questions: how often does it happen, how bad is it, how long does it last, and what happened before. Memory answers all four badly. A diary that captures five things per episode answers them with numbers, and it takes thirty seconds when you feel terrible, which is the only time you will fill it in.
The five fields
Anything beyond these is optional and most people stop filling it in by week two.
- The symptom, as a short consistent name: “Headache”, “Stomach pain”, “Dizziness”. Consistent names give per-symptom counts.
- Severity from one to ten. Your scale, kept consistent, is enough.
- Duration, from the timer. Start it when it begins, stop it when it passes; or type the minutes afterwards.
- What you did: medication and dose, or nothing.
- A line about the day: sleep, food, stress, weather, screen time. This is where triggers hide.
Logging when you feel terrible
Log the symptom and the severity immediately, two taps and a number. Start the timer. Everything else can wait until it passes. A voice memo is faster than typing when your head hurts.
If you missed logging an episode, add it the next day with the approximate time. An approximate entry is far better than a gap.
What to bring to the appointment
Open the log's stats screen: episodes per symptom, average and worst severity, total hours affected, and the calendar heatmap showing which days. That is the summary. Then scroll the entries for the last month if the doctor wants detail.
If you take medication, keep a separate medication log tagged the same, so doses and episodes can be read side by side.
What the diary is not
It does not diagnose, and neither should you from it. Patterns you notice are questions to bring, not conclusions. The diary's job is to make the professional's job easier.
Updated 2026-09-13
