Plain Lab · journal
Pain and Symptom Journal
One page a day for what you noticed and when, written in your own words for the appointment where memory alone is not enough.
Specification
- Trim
- 148 × 210 mm · 5.827 × 8.268 in
- Pages
- 120
- Leaves
- 60
- Sheets
- 30
- Signatures
- 6 × 20pp
- Spine
- 6.86 mm
- Paper
- white
- Ruling
- lined
- Ruling pitch
- 9.17 mm · 26.00 pt
- Rows per page
- 18
A doctor's appointment runs to ten minutes, and the question that matters most is usually the one you cannot answer on the spot: when did this start, how often, what makes it worse. Memory answers that question badly under pressure.
Each symptom page gives that day one place to be written down, in your own words, on the day it happened rather than reconstructed in a waiting room. A shorter run of reflection pages comes later in the book, for a longer look back once a pattern has had time to show itself, or not.
The book does not score, grade or interpret anything you write on it. It has no opinion on what a symptom means, and it is not where that question gets answered; that conversation still belongs to whoever is treating you.
What is inside
- Symptom record
- 84pp
- One page a day for what you noticed and when, in your own words rather than a code.
- Reflection
- 6pp
- Short pages set apart from the daily record, for a longer look back once a pattern has had time to show.
- Notes
- 19pp
- Lined pages for anything the daily page runs out of room for.
- Reference
- 11pp
- Conversions worked from definitions, plus emergency numbers checked against two sources.
The film
Page by page
A vertical film from our own bench — this page contacts nobody's server to play it, and downloads nothing until you press play.
Real pages
Made at the Hibrkraft bindery, Bogor · about the maker
Books that sit alongside it
- Evening InsertWorks alongsideshares personal-writing
Questions
What goes on a symptom page?
Whatever you noticed that day, in your own words: when it started, what it felt like, what came before it.
Does it diagnose anything?
No. It records what you write. Diagnosis is a conversation with whoever is treating you, not something a printed page can do.
Can I bring it to an appointment?
Yes, that is what the daily pages are for: a record you can hand over or read from, in your own words and your own order.
How big is it?
A5, 148 x 210 mm, 120 pages, 6.86 mm across the spine.
Is it dated?
No. Start it on whichever day you decide to start keeping the record.
Even where it is thought of at all, the most extraordinary misconceptions reign about it.
