The wire keeps asking readers to keep a headache log. Most people find that reading a week or two after the crash, with a head that already hurts, and realize the log should have started ten days ago.
That is fine. You can count back. This reading is about doing it carefully, with the brightness down, without making anything up.
Why the start date matters
A headache that began the day after a crash and a headache that began three weeks after are different stories for an examiner. So is a headache that was already there and got worse. The three-day lag is ordinary, and knowing where your first headache falls against it helps the person examining you understand what they are looking at.
The date is also the first line of the record. Everything after it is measured from there.
Start with the one date you know
Write the crash at the top of a page. Date, time, where, what kind of hit. Then draw a line under it and list the days since, one per line, up to today. The empty lines are the ones you are going to fill.
Where the dates are hiding
Look through these slowly. You are looking for any trace of a headache, a stiff neck, a bad night, or a change in your routine.
Your texts
Search your messages for words like headache, head, neck, sore, migraine, tired, and home early. People tell a partner or a friend long before they tell a clinician. "My head is pounding, skipping dinner" on a Tuesday is a date.
Your photos
Photos carry the date and time. The crash scene, the car at the body shop, the ice pack on the couch. Even an ordinary photo from a good day tells you that day was good.
Your calendar and your work messages
A canceled plan, a meeting you left early, a message to your boss saying you would be in late. Those are often the first outside marks a headache leaves.
Your purchases
A pharmacy receipt, an order for blackout curtains, a grocery delivery on a night you did not want to go out. Bank and card apps list them by date.
Your screen time and sleep data
If your phone tracks screen time, a sudden drop can mark the days screens started to hurt. A watch or a sleep app may show broken nights. We mention these lightly; they are clues, not measurements.
The people around you
Ask the person you live with when they first noticed. They may remember the evening you asked for the lights off.
Fill in the page honestly
As you find dates, add them to the page. Then mark each line with how you know it:
- Found: a text, a photo, a receipt with a date on it.
- Remembered: you are fairly sure, but there is no trace.
- Unsure: sometime between two dates.
"First headache sometime between Sunday and Tuesday, fairly sure it was Monday at work" is a good line. It is better than a precise date you are guessing at, because an examiner can trust it.
Do not go back and write a log as if you had kept it. A counted-back page, labeled as counted back, is honest and useful. A backfilled log dressed up as daily entries is neither. Start the real log today, and let the counted-back page sit in front of it.
What the page should end up saying
A short paragraph, readable in a minute:
Crash Saturday, August 15, early evening, rear-ended at a light. Neck stiff Sunday morning (remembered). First headache Monday afternoon at work, base of the skull, left early (found: text to my sister, 2:40pm). Headaches most days since, worse with screens (found: screen time dropped by half that week). Log kept daily from August 27.
That is enough to begin an exam from facts.
When counting back is the wrong task
If your headache is sudden and severe, the worst of your life, or getting worse by the hour, stop reading. Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic.
And if scrolling the phone makes the headache worse, stop. Ask someone to scroll for you, or do a little each evening. The page can be finished over several nights. The light and screens reading has more on getting through the bad-head week.
The practical step
Bring the page and the log to an exam this week. Missouri Injury Clinic publishes its auto injury lane as diagnosis and a treatment plan after a crash. For most readers of this wire the nearest office is Hazelwood, at 14 Village Square Shop Ctr, (314) 627-1411, Monday through Thursday 9am to 6pm and Friday 9am to 12pm, closed daily from 12 to 2. The offices reading has all three.