How to Report Symptoms

• Always describe the onset of your complaints (or those of your child, if the child is the patient); state just how they began as well as the changes that may have taken place since.
• Mention all previous illnesses. A complete health history is important, even of such things as skin diseases, children’s diseases and their after-effects. Tell of fevers, colds, flus, sores, ulcers, injuries. Tell their location and what treatments have been used.
• Describe all mental or ‘nervous’ feelings and conditions, such as likes and dislikes, desires, fears, timidity, hurried feeling, lack of interest, persistent thoughts, discouragement, discontent, over-conscientiousness, irritability, confusion, aversion to business or work, absentmindedness, changeable mood, difficulty of concentration, whether easily startled, whether easily annoyed by noise/children/talk, whether easily affected by bad news, whether better or worse from mental exertion, whether better alone or with company, whether desire to be silent or to talk a lot, whether affected by a room full of people. Tell of emotional shocks, frights disappointments of the present or past.
• Appetite: tell what is craved or disliked, including salt, sweets, fats, sour, spicy, eggs, etc. Also, thirst for much, little or nothing, and what drink is preferred.
• Do the symptoms remain the same or do they change character or shift from one place to another?
• Describe all pain – what kind, what it feels like and whether constant, changeable, or periodical; also in what direction it may go or extend, if any; whether it comes slowly or suddenly and how it leaves.
• Write the time of day, night, month or season that you are better or worse, whether before or after eating, sleeping, moving, resting, when occupied, when thinking of your complaint, etc. Write just what things or conditions make you worse and whatever relieves the pain or sickness. This is important.
• Just how are you affected by different kinds of weather, by cold, heat, dryness, storm coming, thunderstorms, frost, cloudiness, seashore, low or high altitudes, etc?
• Sensations are important. State what kind, where, at what time they are better or worse, and whatever makes them better or worse. Tell all sensations however slight or peculiar.
• In skin, scalp or nail problems, tell the exact location, color, whether dry or moist, thick or thin, scaly, pimply, with or without matter, warts or growths, appearance of surrounding skin; whether itching, burning, worse or better from scratching, and what else makes it better such as heat, heat of bed, cold, exercise, wool, water, etc. Tell of any enlarged veins, etc.
• Describe discharges of any part, whether slight or heavy, the colour, odour, thick or thin, gluey or sticky, causing redness or burning, rawness, colour of stain; and what makes it better or worse and when.
• Urine: whether pain before, during or after passing, colour, odour, appearance, quantitiy, sediment, frequency, urgency.
• Bowel condition: colour, odour, hard, dry, large, pasty, bloody, frothy, slimy, thin, watery, slender, flat, etc. How often, at what times worse or better, or how affected by certain circumstances; whether difficult, incomplete, urging without result or stool slips back in, prevented by spasm of rectum, anything else peculiar.
• Women are to give age at first menstrual period, how far apart then and now; whether pain before, during, or after, then and now, and where; also where the pain may extend to, as to the back, sides, groins, thighs, etc. What kind of pain, what relieves or aggravates, how often the pains come. Tell whether there have been miscarriages. Tell how you feel in general, before, during and after the periods; libido or aversion, whether intercourse is normal, unsatisfactory or painful.
• Men are to give particulars as to male organs, if anything is not normal; whether any former disease or abuse; effect of intercourse, whether night emissions, etc.

Talk about the effects of heat, cold, bathing, lying down, beginning of motion, worse or better from perspiring, from lying, whether lassitude, weakness or weariness, and how affected by activity.

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