First of all look at the symptoms part of the diary

Are your nose, eyes, chest, or skin most bothersome?  Sometimes it may be a combination and sometimes you may not have any symptoms. If you don’t have any symptoms, you should still continue to use the diary and either leave it blank or write “No Symptoms”. Don’t feel that this will make your doctor take you less seriously. Doctors know that people do not have symptoms all the time and it is very useful to them to know when you don’t have symptoms. 

A sample diary is included to help you.

• Allergy Diary
• Allergy Diary (with sample values)

If you have got some problems, circle the parts of your body that have been affected (refer to the allergy diary); nose, skin, chest or eyes (it may be more than 1) and give each of them that you circled a score from 1-3.

1. Would mean that you felt that there was a problem but it did not affect you very much
2. Would mean that it caused you some discomfort throughout the day
3. Would mean that you were continually aware of this symptom and it caused you a lot of discomfort

Next, try and explain how you were affected.

Were your daily activities (this could be work, school, shopping, sport etc) affected ? If so, put a circle around the person at work, even if you do not work or go to school. Again, try to give a score between 1 and 3; but don’t be afraid to put nothing if this is the case.

Did you have trouble sleeping? If so, circle the bed and try to assess the extent of sleep affected. For example,

1. I woke once during the night
2. I woke twice or more during the night and/or did not feel rested in the morning
3. I felt as though I had not really slept.

What medication did you take?

This should include all medication including aspirin, paracetamol, any other medications whether specifically for allergies or not and should also include homeopathic remedies, herbal remedies etc.

Overall I felt:

Please try and give an accurate view of how you are.  It is not necessarily related to symptoms. Just circle the face that you feel most closely represent how you feel today.

Special Today/Comments

This is one of the most important areas. A number of factors can influence your symptoms, including different environments, stress etc. This part of the diary will help your doctor assess which situations aggravate your symptoms.

Please, also write down if there are special situations when you feel that your symptoms are worse, even if these do not occur during the time when you are filling in the diary.

An example might be, I feel fine except when I go to Grandma’s house. If you can identify anything special about this house (she has a dog, a bird, the house is cold and damp etc. then it is also very useful to write this down).