How to keep a symptom diary your doctor will read
Appointments are short. A notebook of free-form pages rarely gets read; one clear page per month usually does.
Make it readable in a minute
- The same symptoms every day, so a row can be read across the month.
- One scale, 0 to 10, for everything.
- Days logged and the lowest and highest numbers at the top, so the reader knows how complete it is.
- Notes kept short, one line, only for days that were different.
Bring it the right way
- Print it, or have it ready on your phone before you go in.
- Put your two or three questions at the top.
- Point to the days you want to talk about instead of describing the whole month.
What the advice says
MedlinePlus, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's health information service, tells patients to "write down a description of your symptoms. Include information such as when they started, what makes them better, and what makes them worse," to make a list of "all the medicines, herbs, vitamins, and supplements you take," and to "make a list of the questions and concerns you want to talk about." A diary kept the same way every day is one way to have that ready. It is a record for you and your clinician to read together.
Source: MedlinePlus, "Talking With Your Doctor", page updated 5 October 2024, read 4 October 2026. A printable template is on the symptom diary template page.
How Brookday does it
Brookday's monthly report is built for this: one month at a time, black on white, a symptom table with days logged and the lowest and highest recorded numbers, a day-by-day grid and your notes. Logging a day takes a moment, and "Same as yesterday" covers the stable ones.
Price: Logging, history, charts and exporting your own data are always free, for as many days as you like. Your first doctor PDF costs nothing, and more doctor PDFs need a one-time unlock for $14.99. It doesn't renew. Nothing you have logged is ever locked.
Brookday records what you enter and reports it back. It does not diagnose, interpret, suggest treatment or calculate anything about medication. It is a notebook, not a clinician.