Nerve pain diary template

Nerve pain feels different: burning, tingling, like electric shocks, often worse with touch or at night. This template asks about exactly that.

Nerve pain diary

A4 landscape · 2 pages · prints fine in black and white · free, no sign-up

Download PDF

What to track, and why

With neuropathic pain, how it feels often says more than the number. Burning, tingling, numbness or sensitivity to touch are important clues. Many nerve pain medicines are also started at a low dose and increased slowly. A diary shows over weeks whether anything changes and which side effects show up.

Sensation

Burning, tingling, electric, shooting, numb. One word per entry is enough; what matters is using the same words each time.

Touch

Do clothes, bedding or a light touch hurt? Write it down, even if it sounds odd.

Sleep

Did the pain wake you, and how often? Broken sleep is common with nerve pain and worth recording.

Medication and side effects

Dose, time, and anything you notice afterwards, such as drowsiness or dizziness. While the dose is being increased, the trend is what counts.

Columns in this template

  • Time hh:mm
  • Severity 0–10
  • Where? body area
  • Sensation burning, tingling, electric, numb
  • Touch sensitive? clothes, bedding
  • Possible triggers sleep, stress, food …
  • Woken at night? yes / no, how often
  • Medication name, dose, time
  • Notes mood, sleep, anything unusual

How to fill it in

  1. Print page 1 once a week, and page 2 once a week for your review.
  2. Write things down close to when they happen, not in the evening from memory.
  3. Stick to one scale: 0 is no pain, 10 is the worst pain you can imagine.
  4. Blank boxes are fine. A short, honest entry beats a perfect one you reconstruct later.

Then what? Making use of your filled-in sheets

Most templates stop at the filling-in part. But the value comes afterwards, when lots of rows turn into a few clear statements.

  1. Sum up each week

    At the weekend, fill in page 2: days with pain, worst score, days you took painkillers. It takes five minutes and saves a lot of page-flipping at the appointment.

  2. Compare after four weeks

    Lay the weekly reviews side by side. Does anything repeat, a weekday, an activity, a trigger? Mark it, but don't jump to conclusions: a pattern isn't proof of a cause.

  3. Three numbers for your appointment

    Before you go, write at the top of the first sheet: how many days a month you had pain, how strong it was on average, and what you couldn't do because of it. Those three lines make a good opening.

  4. Take the sheets, keep a copy

    Bring the originals and take a photo first. After any change in treatment, comparing old and new sheets shows whether anything has changed.

When paper gets too much

Paper is a good start. The tedious part is the analysis: adding up weeks, looking for patterns, sorting sheets. That's exactly what PainTrack does for you.

  • Log an entry in seconds on your own scale: 0–10, yes/no or mild/moderate/severe
  • Add circumstances, body location and medication to an entry, with reminders
  • Your trend chart and weekly trends update by themselves
  • With Pro: trigger analysis and a ready-made PDF report for your doctor
App Store Google Play

Free for iPhone and Android, no account needed. Your data stays on your device.

This template helps you document your symptoms. It doesn't diagnose anything and is not a substitute for medical advice. If you have new, very severe or unusual symptoms, contact a doctor, or call your local emergency number in an emergency.

Trustworthy sources

External pages from health services, medical societies and patient organisations. We are not affiliated with any of them.

Other templates