The Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool
To help doctors better understand your symptoms and identify possible reasons for them, they need certain information from you. This includes details on the nature of your symptoms and when you are having them.
The Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool was co-designed with patients and healthcare professionals to help you track your symptoms and treatment history, so that you are ready to communicate this important information to your doctor.
The tool is available in Welsh and English.
To download a paper copy of the tool click here
Who should use the Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool?
- The Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool is for anyone experiencing symptoms that might be endometriosis and would like to speak to their doctor about their symptoms.
- People who have previously received a diagnosis of endometriosis can also use the tool to track their symptoms over time, for example, to see if a new treatment is helping or not, or if something has changed.
Why should I use the Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool?
It can sometimes be difficult to communicate about gynaecological and pelvic symptoms in a way that helps doctors to understand how these symptoms are affecting you and in a way that helps you decide on next steps together.
This tool aims to make that process more straightforward.
During your appointments about gynaecological and pelvic symptoms, your doctor will want to find out:
- What type of symptoms you have. For example, do you experience pelvic pain, period pain, painful bowel movements?
- How often the symptoms occur. For example, do the symptoms happen frequently or occasionally?
- Whether symptoms follow a specific repeating pattern. For example, do your symptom happen just before or after your period?
- How much pain you experience and whether the pain makes it hard for you to do your daily activities. For example, do your symptoms make it hard for you to get up, think, go to work or school?
- And there may be other questions about your medical and family history of symptoms or other health conditions.
To gather information about your symptoms, doctors will often ask you to keep a symptom diary. This is often called ‘symptom tracking’. Symptom tracking means collecting information about your symptoms every day, usually for 2 to 3 months.
There are many ways to track and report symptoms but not all tools are designed to collect information about symptoms that could be endometriosis in a way that is helpful to doctors.
Some symptom tracking tools were made to understand any menstrual, or gynaecological symptoms. Although these tools may be helpful as they let you log all your symptoms in one place, they often ask too many questions or do not ask the right questions to help your discussions with a doctor about symptoms that could be endometriosis. Other symptom tracking tools might be designed for fertility cycles, for example helping you to know when you are most likely to become pregnant.
We developed the Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool to help you track your symptoms in a way that will help discussions with a doctor. The Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool focuses on the key symptoms that are most helpful to you and your doctor when making decisions about your care. The tool will help you build a profile of your symptoms that you can show to your doctor.
The Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool on its own cannot provide you with an official diagnosis. Only a doctor can make a diagnosis. We designed the tool so that you can share information with your doctor.
