Recording Your Medication
The dose time alone becomes the reference point for every other interval. It's the first thing to get right in your records.
On the curve, the dose marker is just a single small triangle, but it’s actually the reference point for the whole picture. How long it took to rise, how long it held, whether it dropped before the next dose — all of these are distances measured from the dose time.
So even if the rest of the record is a little thin, you can still read a lot from it as long as the dose time is accurate. On the other hand, if the dose time is fuzzy, the rest can be as detailed as you like and it’s still hard to interpret.
One more thing worth adding: this record isn’t a checklist for whether you followed the schedule. Leave days you took a dose late or skipped one just as they are. The curve on those days is actually what makes “what’s usual for me” clearer.
Step by step
- Set up your usual medications and times in advance Once they're set up, you only need to confirm at the moment you take a dose, which cuts down on missed entries.
- Log it right when you take it If you try to remember later, ten or twenty minutes can get blurry. On the curve, that margin of error can look quite large.
- Leave days that differ from your usual pattern as they are Don't delete a day you took a dose late or skipped one — leaving it as it is helps later on.
- Mark meal times too This lets you look back later at how close a dose was to a meal.
Worth knowing
Frequently asked questions
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I forgot and logged it later. Should I delete it?
Don't delete it. Just leave an approximate time and note that you entered it later. It's far better than having nothing.
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Should I leave out days I took a dose late?
It's actually better to keep them. How the curve changes when you took a dose differently than usual gives you something to talk about at your appointment.
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Do I really need to log meal times too?
It's not required. But if a late rise or an insufficient rise keeps happening, having meal times alongside the dose lets you see things you otherwise couldn't.