Specialist visits are short. The people who leave with a plan usually walked in with a one-page record and three questions. The people who leave frustrated often walked in with a phone full of screenshots and a story that starts in 2014.
This is a packing list, not medical advice.
On paper or PDF
- Your name and the date range of the log
- Episode count, days with any attack, average intensity, average duration
- Type mix if you use more than one label
- Top trigger tags
- Medication names and doses you actually took, including over-the-counter
- Allergies and current daily medicines (a photo of the bottles is fine)
If you use Auralis Reports, that PDF is generated on the iPhone. Print it or AirDrop it to yourself before you sit down. Clinic Wi-Fi will not be your friend.
In your bag
- Insurance card and ID
- A list of previous preventives and why they stopped (side effect, no change, cost)
- Imaging reports if they exist — the report, not the CD if you can avoid it
- Sunglasses if light is a problem in the waiting room
Three questions written down
Write them before you arrive. Examples that stay in scope:
- What else do you want me to log before the next visit?
- Which of these acute options is reasonable to have at home?
- What would make you want imaging or labs, and what would not?
Notice none of these ask an app. An app cannot answer them.
What to leave at home
- A binder of every article about “root causes”
- Wearable dashboards nobody asked for
- A speech about how you are sure it is the weather, unless you also have the pressure column
- Other people’s horror stories
During the visit
Lead with the last 90 days, not your childhood, unless they ask. Offer the PDF. Answer duration and frequency from the page so you do not renegotiate the month under fluorescent lights.
If they change a plan, add a note that night: new daily, new acute, what to watch. That note belongs in the diary as much as the attacks do.
Follow-up
The next appointment is easier if the diary continues in the same format. Do not switch apps the week after you finally have a baseline.
Auralis is built for that boring consistency: same fields, local storage, optional Health import, optional PDF. It will not claim to relieve or cure anything. That is the point. You already have a specialist. They need a record, not another theory.