When was the last time you went to your doctor?  Your dentist?  Your physio?

Why did you go?  What was wrong with you?

What did your health professional tell you?

What did you learn from the experience?  Anything?  Do you remember?

Your body is a complex structure with all sorts of things happening in it that you likely don't understand.  It is easy to leave the care of your body to others that 'know what they are talking about' and just do as you are told, but it is a dangerous habit to fall into.  Too much dependence on busy healthcare practitioners can result in you getting lost in the shuffle of a strained medical system.  Your doctor or physio may be a very compassionate and diligent professional with your best interests at heart, but you have to remember that he/she likely sees ten to twenty other people every day too and it is easy for things to fall through the cracks.

The best way to make sure you are taken care of is to become the leader of your own healthcare team and try to learn something about your body with every interaction with your doctor, physio, trainer, etc., and then keep track of your health related experiences over the years.  Write down every time you have an injury or pain.  Write down every time you see your doctor and what you learned from the appointment.  Write down the advice your naturopath gave you so you can refer to it again in the future.

You should create your own health record, in your own words of what you understand to be wrong with you and what you might be able to do to get better and prevent the problem from surfacing again.  Your health is a product of everything you have done up to this point and it is a very helpful tool if you have a record of the past that has helped you learn along the way.  Your health professionals take notes after every time you see them, why shouldn't you?  You likely have paper charts all over the city with details about you that you don't have access to.  Don't you think it would be better if you kept one comprehensive chart about yourself that you could refer to and learn from?

That is exactly what your Dashboard on WhyThingsHurt.com allows you to do.  In one secure place you can make private notes on injuries/pains and date stamp them.  You can record advice you have been given and who it was from.  You can also search videos that explain the root cause of your symptoms.  The website allows you to record all this information in folders on one page that is searchable by date and key words.  You can search back pain and it will pull up all your notes about back pain you have made in a chronological order.  You can then watch videos on the site that explain back pain as well as videos of the bookmarked exercises you may have done the last time you visited your physio.  It empowers you to learn and enables you to provide a more informed history to your health care providers.