Chronic Illness Management: 8 Ways to manage your health, stay organised, and feel in control.
Having a chronic illness can be exhausting, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.
So it's important that you are able to manage your condition well, before it starts to manage you.
Here is a list of 8 things you can do to feel in control, organised, and on top of your health.
1. Attend your appointments
Okay, so this may seem a bit obvious – and I know it is – but stick with me! It is also extremely important.
It can be frustrating to spend so much of your time in medical waiting rooms, getting blood tests, waiting for your meds from the pharmacy, time off work, time away from seeing friends or family – or just time away doing something more interesting!
But it is so important to keep all of your appointments (or reschedule those where you just can’t make it) so that you catch any changes in your health. A problem caught early can often be helped, managed, or fixed.
2. Make a plan
Now that you attend all your appointments and talk to your medical team, ask them what your management plan is.
What are your goals? What needs to be done to meet those goals? Are you getting all the checks you need? Are you doing everything you can to ensure you are pre-empting any issues that your condition/s can throw at you?
Don’t wait until you have a new symptom or another diagnosis to add to your collection. Ask your medical team what you (or they) can be doing to ensure you have covered all your bases, are in the best health possible considering your situation, and avoid any unnecessary further pain and suffering.
You don’t know what you don’t know, so ASK! It is your life, be in control of it as much as you can. You can do this!
3. Keep a record of ALL of your medical providers and specialists.
As you know, having a chronic illness doesn’t mean you only have one illness. Your entire body is connected and what goes wrong with one part can (and often does) cause something to go wrong somewhere else! It can affect different body systems, and what you do to fix one problem, can often cause another. You eventually end up seeing a variety of medical specialists in all fields.
Therefore, it’s important to keep track of which doctor you are seeing for which ailment.
Who do you see most regularly – who is your main point of call (perhaps your G.P? Perhaps your primary specialist?). What specialists have you been referred to?
As the years go on, this list gets longer! So keep track of it. Your future medical professionals will want to know what has happened and who you’ve seen up until you meet them. The easiest way is to keep a dedicated Medical Record Planner that can provide one place to organise your health information; specialists, appointments, tracking, results, and questions. You can bring it with you to all your appointments and have the information there to give the specialists what they need to know.
4. Keep a current medication list
This is very important for those of us with Chronic Conditions as sometimes we rattle when we walk from all of those tablets we take!
What you take or don’t take can impact your health.
Medications have a habit of interacting with each other (or some foods/fruits – grapefruit for example) and can cause reactions or side effects in all different body systems. Knowing what you are taking, helps all your medical professionals understand what may be happening to you.
Some medications also need to be stopped prior to having any surgery, whilst others must continue to be taken or the cessation can cause you harm.
So keep a list of your medications and note down any side effects or problems you think may be related to your medications.
It can also be beneficial to have a Pharmacist review your medications occasionally to make sure none of them are interfering with each other or are contraindicated. Doctors are great, but having multiple doctors prescribe multiple medications can get messy and you need to make sure they ALL know EVERYTHING you are taking. If you are unsure, ask a pharmacist to review it for you.
5. Track symptoms consistently
If you are noticing anything unusual or are having any symptoms, or changes in your illness, keep a tracker.
Noticing any patterns in your health can be very useful information to give to your medical team to help manage your condition/s. If you see a pattern, you can pre-empt it next time, or adapt accordingly.
You can track your symptoms in a calendar, phone app, colour it in on a paper tracker if you're a little artistic, or in a Medical Record Planner. Whatever works best for you and that you will actually remember to use.
6. Bring important health information and queries to appointments
Ever been to an appointment and remembered on the drive home that you were going to ask something and totally forgot? Then got angry at yourself for forgetting? I know I have! But not anymore, I make sure that when I am at home and think of things I want to check or ask at my appointment, I write them down in a list and bring it to my appointment (you can write it in your phone, or in your Medical Record Planner, or anywhere else that you will remember to bring it - don't leave it at home).
This way you can ask and check things that happen between medical appointments, raising any issues or changes early – as we know (and I keep repeating) getting on top of any changes early, has a better outcome.
7. Keep copies of test results, imaging, surgeries, and medical professional conversations and plans
This links in with the above, keep copies of everything! You know yourself better than anyone else, you also need to remember everything that has happened to you– which can become hard when you see multiple specialists, dozens of appointments, year after year after year. Your memory will eventually fade. WRITE IT DOWN!.
What tests or imaging have you had done? Have you had any surgeries? Have you had any parts removed? Have you had any parts implanted?
What, Where, When, Why, by Whom, what was the outcome? what were you meant to do to follow up? Were you meant to get more tests done? Change a medication? Have more blood tests? Keep track of it.
8. Lifestyle and Support
Last but not least, you are more than your condition.
Some Chronic Illnesses can take away a lot of “you” and what “you want” to do in life.
There is a balance to be found between all of the medical talk, appointments, being prodded and poked, tested and scanned, and feeling like your biggest meal of the day is your morning medication regime, vs the life you want!
I know you know this, so this is your daily reminder to eat better (I still need this reminder daily) and move that body. Walk, stretch, jog or run, geocache if you’re into that, or even just float in a pool. Our bodies work on the promise of “move it or lose it”. Whatever you can move, you need to move it.
We only have one body, and this we need to care for, but this also includes our mind and soul too. Find something you love and are able to do, socialise with ‘your people’, get out in nature as often as you can (this is so underrated when it comes to making you feel better, and I highly recommend it!).
Remember, if you’re struggling, you’re not alone. There are many of us out there with Chronic Conditions of all kinds, we understand, and we get it. So find some supports, and if you can’t find them, go to your doctor and ask for their recommendations – there is always someone available to talk to, you just need to ask.
Conclusion
Managing a chronic illness often means juggling your time, medications, appointments, specialists, test results and health records. Having one place to keep this information can make chronic illness management less stressful and help you stay in control of your healthcare. A dedicated Medical Record Planner can help you to be organised and keep everything accessible when you need it.
Need a Medical Record Planner? click here.
