If you are looking for an easy tool to track your chronic pain and symptoms of illness, you may find a private Twitter account as the perfect application that is easy to use, free and where it really does matter that you post what you ate for breakfast.

If you live with chronic pain or a chronic illness you may have been requested by your physician to keep a diary of when you are feeling your best and worst. It may also be recommended that you write down your activities, your sleep patterns, and even your diet.

Anyone who has ever tried to do this can find it overwhelming. However, it can be extremely helpful to both you and your doctor when you have an increase in inflammation or in a extreme flare. What caused the increase in pain? The weather? Something you ate? A new medication? A stressful event?

It is ironic while those of us who live with chronic pain they find it challenging to write down what we are doing all of the time, what we are eating, and how we are medicating ourselves, millions of people are on the social network Twitter are recording what they ate for breakfast, the fact that they have a cold, or when they're up working at 2:30 a.m. and on the computer. . . and they consider it fun!

Now is the time for those of us who have a chronic illness to let Twitter worked for us! This social networking tool has been used to help people with dieting, exercise, and even encouragement to stop smoking. But it may best benefit those of us with illness, who need to record enough of our life to figure out what is causing an increase in pain.

Here are the 5 steps to do this:

[1] Create an account at Twitter just for your log of chronic pain. If you are already a Twitterer, set up a new one that will remain private. Under the "settings" options, you can choose to have to approve anyone who wants to follow you. Since this is your pain log, you likely will not wish to any followers. Note that if you already have a twitter account this can seem odd, to not want to increase the number of followers.

[2] You are now ready to start writing your posts. You cannot write more than 140 characters, however, this keeps it a simple task and not too overwhelming. Feel free to use it in any way necessary, for example, submitting more than one post to describe a special circumstance. You can send posts from your cell phone, not just from the computer, so set up this option in your account to make the most of it.

[3] Remember to post at the very least any major events that are not part of your typical day and your body's response to them. For example a post may include how you woke up feeling, major weather influences, if you took extra medication, or if you are active or solitary during the day. You can post whatever information may be of value to you at some point.

[4] Before your doctor's appointment log on to Twitter and print out the pages if your doctor would like a copy of them. Highlight any major activities that could have created ups and downs in your pain level.

[5] If you already use twitter for personal or business reasons, consider using a service that will post to more than one account at a time so that you are regular tweets that share where you are and what you are doing can also post to your twitter chronic pain log without any additional effort.

There is a large market for Twitter applications and it will continue to grow. It's likely that there will be many Web 2.0 tools designed for patients. Fancy applications will likely be developed to help you record your pain levels. But for now, you can have a comprehensive outline of the influencing factors in your life that may affect your illness or pain levels. And you can have it up and running in just minutes completely for free. Can't beat that!