(Posted by Soula, 16 June 2018)
I had a GP appointment yesterday.
I updated my PainTrain health summary and emailed my private access link to the medical centre so they could forward it to my doctor.
On the way in, I remembered that I needed to check if my pain specialist’s referral was out of date. So,I added the reminder quickly by logging into PainTrain on my phone.
As you can see, I have a little shoulder pain issue.
Two minutes into the appointment my doctor asked, ‘What’s going on with your shoulder?’ – I hadn’t said anything about this latest issue yet!
It felt so different approaching the appointment in this way. Not only did the doctor and I both save time, but I didn’t need to repeat the additional issue that’s been going on in my head for weeks now.
Above all, it made me feel my doctor really cared by reading my important information and preparing for our appointment. It felt great that she took the time to read my notes and now understood more about me.
Driving away, Theo’s said, ‘it was like you had a conversation with the doctor previously’. So true!
AND
I was ecstatic when I saw my doctor scrolling through my PainTrain – My Health Summary and that she had also saved it to my medical file on her computer.
As patients we’re so used to having advice passed on to us. But times have changed and chronic pain is a very complex issue that needs the patient to do a lot of their own work.
As difficult as it is for someone living with chronic pain to manage – even the simplest things on their own, in the long run I believe newer pain management methods like PainTrain will become a normal part of health care with positive outcomes for both the patient and their pain team/s.
