PMS: Ways to Record Your Symptoms

Topic Overview

There are several ways to keep a menstrual diary of your PMS symptoms. Diaries that require daily recording are more reliable in tracking your symptoms. Calendars without marks for a day may mean you forgot to record for that day rather than a day when you didn't have any symptoms.

Most bothersome symptom scoring

You can choose your five most bothersome PMS symptoms and record their severity daily with a score from 0 to 3 (0 being the absence of that symptom, 3 being most severe).

Make a table with 6 columns and with as many rows as days you'd like to record your symptoms. The first column is "Day of month" and the next five columns are for each of your most bothersome symptoms.

See example below.

Day of month	Symptom 1	Symptom 2	Symptom 3	Symptom 4	Symptom 5
1	Score 2	Score 1	Score 3	Score 0	Score 2
2	1	0	3	0	2
3	1	1	3	0	2
Continue days

Variety of symptoms scoring

You can keep a calendar that lists a wide variety of symptoms. Make a table with as many columns as symptoms you'd like to record, and with as many rows as days you'd like to record your symptoms. The first column is "Day of month."

You record the severity of each symptom daily on a scale of 1 to 3 (1 being mild and 3 being severe). If the symptom is not present on any day, you don't record anything.

See example below.

Day of month	Symptom A	Symptom B	Symptom C	Symptom D	Continue symptoms
1	1 (mild)	1	1	2 (moderate)
2	--	1	1	2
3	--	--	2	3 (severe)
Continue days

Symbol scoring

You can use symbols to indicate the presence and severity of a list of symptoms or just the ones most bothersome to you. If you don't have a symptom that day, you don't mark the diary for that day. A mild symptom is indicated with a dot. Moderate symptoms are indicated by a circle. Severe symptoms are indicated by an X. See example below.

Make a table with as many columns as symptoms you'd like to record, and with as many rows as days you'd like to record your symptoms. The first column is "Day of month."

Day of month	Symptom A	Symptom B	Symptom C	Continue symptoms
1	·	°	×
2	·		×
3	·	°	×
Continue days