Is anyone tracking food/symptoms with an online tool? I think I'll need that to really see what's going on. I don't mind having notes that I enter at the end of the day, so don't absolutely need 24/7 sync-up with smart-phone. I mostly want to be able to find previous times when I've eaten something, to see whether the results are similar...
Thanks,
Sara
Online food/symptom journals?
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Does it need to be online? I kept my Winning the Poo diary on a simple spreadsheet on my 'puter.
I stopped making entries almost 7 years ago, but the diary is still there, anytime I want to refer to it. Some websites may not last that long.
Tex
I stopped making entries almost 7 years ago, but the diary is still there, anytime I want to refer to it. Some websites may not last that long.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Sara
IMHO their is absolutely no reason to use all kinds of high technology for a food diary. It just complicates things and adds lots of stress for me.
A simple, cheep, spiral bound notebook that you set up with columns that make sense to you can be changed as things change from page to page as you recover . Don't expect perfection at first. Besides, the slow meditative pace of actually writing with a pen made me much more aware of what was happening. Setting up my own simple system, worked and was very easily adaptable as things changed . And they did.
Write things into it for a while and then go back and review it. And change it if you need or want to. And then change it again. And again.
It is actually a fun project. Not an exercise in perfection. But one in transformation .
For me the less technology and the simpler really worked. This disease is complicated enough without making it more so by trying to fit your life into someone else's idea of how to keep a journal of any kind.
Love
Matthew
IMHO their is absolutely no reason to use all kinds of high technology for a food diary. It just complicates things and adds lots of stress for me.
A simple, cheep, spiral bound notebook that you set up with columns that make sense to you can be changed as things change from page to page as you recover . Don't expect perfection at first. Besides, the slow meditative pace of actually writing with a pen made me much more aware of what was happening. Setting up my own simple system, worked and was very easily adaptable as things changed . And they did.
Write things into it for a while and then go back and review it. And change it if you need or want to. And then change it again. And again.
It is actually a fun project. Not an exercise in perfection. But one in transformation .
For me the less technology and the simpler really worked. This disease is complicated enough without making it more so by trying to fit your life into someone else's idea of how to keep a journal of any kind.
Love
Matthew
Sara,
I maintain a hand-written food diary, but I have sometimes entered my meals into a spreadsheet when I have a hard time seeing a pattern. This only works when there is some variety in your symptoms.
The spreadsheet helped me figure out the foods that were causing my mouth sores, for example - and they've been numerous. It allowed me to display D or worse columns so I could see if I was eating the same foods each day before I had the D. I also could see which meals resulted in better days.
I didn't enter my foods in typical food diary fashion, however, and it took a little longer. My columns were the foods grouped into categories, then listed by date eaten. The rows were the symptoms.
Here's an example:
Ingredient | Date eaten | Gurgling | Explosive D | Diarrhea | Pudding | Solid Pieces | Soft-Formed | Formed | Normal | Mouth Sore
Rice flour | 6/12/10 | late evening | | X | 2X | morning
I'm not able to get the columns to line up, but you probably get the idea. You can hide the columns to focus on the symptoms, or hide the rows to focus on a particular food. It was pretty time-consuming to enter the items in the spreadsheet, but it did help me determine additonal intolerances.
I haven't needed to use the spreadsheet since last June when I finally began having Normans (until my next intolerance arose).
Gloria
I maintain a hand-written food diary, but I have sometimes entered my meals into a spreadsheet when I have a hard time seeing a pattern. This only works when there is some variety in your symptoms.
The spreadsheet helped me figure out the foods that were causing my mouth sores, for example - and they've been numerous. It allowed me to display D or worse columns so I could see if I was eating the same foods each day before I had the D. I also could see which meals resulted in better days.
I didn't enter my foods in typical food diary fashion, however, and it took a little longer. My columns were the foods grouped into categories, then listed by date eaten. The rows were the symptoms.
Here's an example:
Ingredient | Date eaten | Gurgling | Explosive D | Diarrhea | Pudding | Solid Pieces | Soft-Formed | Formed | Normal | Mouth Sore
Rice flour | 6/12/10 | late evening | | X | 2X | morning
I'm not able to get the columns to line up, but you probably get the idea. You can hide the columns to focus on the symptoms, or hide the rows to focus on a particular food. It was pretty time-consuming to enter the items in the spreadsheet, but it did help me determine additonal intolerances.
I haven't needed to use the spreadsheet since last June when I finally began having Normans (until my next intolerance arose).
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
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TooManyHats
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Gabes-Apg
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Mine is as simple as a A5 size bound book - each day i track
period of sleep:
any symptoms am:
any symptoms pm:
any symptoms night:
BM's: (i note the time, texture, colour, smell etc was there any pain before hand for each BM)
Urine: (frequency, ph results if i do ph test)
Supplements: (I only include detail if i had them at different time or change in dosage)
Notes: if i had meal at different time, if i had a new ingredient, any activity ie fasting blood test or a stressful meeting,
period of sleep:
any symptoms am:
any symptoms pm:
any symptoms night:
BM's: (i note the time, texture, colour, smell etc was there any pain before hand for each BM)
Urine: (frequency, ph results if i do ph test)
Supplements: (I only include detail if i had them at different time or change in dosage)
Notes: if i had meal at different time, if i had a new ingredient, any activity ie fasting blood test or a stressful meeting,
Gabes Ryan
"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned"
Dalai Lama
"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned"
Dalai Lama
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MBombardier
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Arlene, please don't feel that way. I am OCD to the max and find a real sense of victory in being able to just scribble down what I ate, how my BM's are, how fatigued I am, and how sore or rashy I am. I just have a little notebook beside my place at the table, and scribble all over the page. To each his own, and what works for someone else may or may not work for you. Please don't condemn yourself because what you do doesn't seem the same as what someone else does. If it works for you, that is all it needs to do and to be.
Marliss Bombardier
Dum spiro, spero -- While I breathe, I hope
Psoriasis - the dark ages
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis - Dec 2001
Collagenous Colitis - Sept 2010
Granuloma Annulare - June 2011
Dum spiro, spero -- While I breathe, I hope
Psoriasis - the dark ages
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis - Dec 2001
Collagenous Colitis - Sept 2010
Granuloma Annulare - June 2011
Arlene--
I'll second that. I keep a spiral bound notebook with me everywhere I go because I write everything down in it. I got into the habit when working as a wine sales rep, and now I just do it as force of habit. It is a five-subject college-ruled notebook, so I can keep one section as a food-poo diary. The rest is for notes to myself, lists, contacts, my disability stuff, etc. I am always going in a million different directions, so I find notebooks useful. I keep them, with the start and end dates on the front in marker, so I can look things up if I need to. I know this might sound as if I am organized, but it is the exact opposite. If I did not have my notebook, I would be in my living room standing in circles with no idea what to do! I can't remember anything!
Anything useful, that is....I am a huge repository of useless and esoteric information!
Love,
Maggie
I'll second that. I keep a spiral bound notebook with me everywhere I go because I write everything down in it. I got into the habit when working as a wine sales rep, and now I just do it as force of habit. It is a five-subject college-ruled notebook, so I can keep one section as a food-poo diary. The rest is for notes to myself, lists, contacts, my disability stuff, etc. I am always going in a million different directions, so I find notebooks useful. I keep them, with the start and end dates on the front in marker, so I can look things up if I need to. I know this might sound as if I am organized, but it is the exact opposite. If I did not have my notebook, I would be in my living room standing in circles with no idea what to do! I can't remember anything!
Anything useful, that is....I am a huge repository of useless and esoteric information!
Love,
Maggie
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TooManyHats
- Rockhopper Penguin
- Posts: 550
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I, too, am very low-tech. I keep a spiral notebook in the bedroom, right by the bathroom door. I have only two columns, one for food and one for poo (for which I note size, shape, and consistency). If I notice other symptoms, like gurgling, stomach pain, headache, or achy joints, I note that in brackets in the poo column. If I take Imodium or Tylenol, I write that at the top of the page, noting the time I take it.
If I were trying to keep track of things on the computer, I'd be less likely to keep the journal filled in, because for me, it's just not as handy. But there would be the advantage of being able to search for certain symptoms, or group things differently, in order to see patterns.
If I were trying to keep track of things on the computer, I'd be less likely to keep the journal filled in, because for me, it's just not as handy. But there would be the advantage of being able to search for certain symptoms, or group things differently, in order to see patterns.
Martha
Thanks, Martha - that's just what I'm thinking. I hope also that just by processing my scribbled notes into a spreadsheet regularly, I am likely to notice connections that I wouldn't otherwise. (Kind of like the meditative review that Matthew described, only geekier... and Matthew, I totally agree, columns etc. set up with someone else's idea will inevitably not fit for me, though I have gotten a lot from learning what/how others are tracking.)
I am noticing I sometimes have symptoms that aren't poo-related - headache, runny nose, extreme pallor or sudden flush, all come on kind of suddenly, and itchy ears, achy joints, slight dizziness seem to come and go more slowly, over days. So I'm going to need my little notebook to be super-portable, and also to jot things down when I don't have it with me, which will inevitably happen - either I will suddenly see how flushed I am, while out running errands, or I will notice that I have been slightly dizzy, but hadn't realized exactly when it started (those vague ones are going to be fun to figure out).
Even with this new attentiveness, I would never have understood the possibility of a mast-cell issue, if it weren't for Mary Beth & Tex (and others, thank you all so much, you have saved me probably years of wandering in the dark).
This is a great help. I'm going to transcribe the past few days from my piece of shirt cardboard, which I grabbed the other day when I first noticed a sudden flushiness, and stock up my purse with 3x5s along with my regular notebook...
Love,
Sara
I am noticing I sometimes have symptoms that aren't poo-related - headache, runny nose, extreme pallor or sudden flush, all come on kind of suddenly, and itchy ears, achy joints, slight dizziness seem to come and go more slowly, over days. So I'm going to need my little notebook to be super-portable, and also to jot things down when I don't have it with me, which will inevitably happen - either I will suddenly see how flushed I am, while out running errands, or I will notice that I have been slightly dizzy, but hadn't realized exactly when it started (those vague ones are going to be fun to figure out).
Even with this new attentiveness, I would never have understood the possibility of a mast-cell issue, if it weren't for Mary Beth & Tex (and others, thank you all so much, you have saved me probably years of wandering in the dark).
This is a great help. I'm going to transcribe the past few days from my piece of shirt cardboard, which I grabbed the other day when I first noticed a sudden flushiness, and stock up my purse with 3x5s along with my regular notebook...
Love,
Sara
Arlene,
I'm glad you got something useful out of my post. Every little bit helps.
Everyone has to use the method that works best for them and their situation. Gabe's expression...."There is no right way or wrong way, there is only your way." I used the spreadsheet as a last resort, when I couldn't figure out what was causing my mouth sores and symptoms. It gave me insight that I didn't have before and showed me that I can't eat any vinegar or acidic foods, and ultimately, that I have a mast cell problem.
Gloria
I'm glad you got something useful out of my post. Every little bit helps.
Everyone has to use the method that works best for them and their situation. Gabe's expression...."There is no right way or wrong way, there is only your way." I used the spreadsheet as a last resort, when I couldn't figure out what was causing my mouth sores and symptoms. It gave me insight that I didn't have before and showed me that I can't eat any vinegar or acidic foods, and ultimately, that I have a mast cell problem.
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
