The dose diary template: one line a week that upgrades every other decision you’ll make

THE SHORT ANSWER

The seven fields — and the choices behind them

Date and dose anchor everything — titration history reconstructed from memory is fiction, and these two columns are the non-fiction. Injection site, logged as a simple code (abdomen-L, abdomen-R, thigh-L, thigh-R, arm-L, arm-R), makes rotation automatic: next week’s site is whatever last week’s wasn’t, technique per your provider’s training. The 0–3 score beats adjective memory precisely because it’s crude — crude scales get filled in, and four weeks of “2, 2, 1, 1” tells a titration story no recollection can. Worst symptom, two words (“AM nausea,” “day-2 fatigue”) gives the score a face. Same-scale weight — the plateau file’s same-conditions rule, one number weekly, no daily-noise subscriptions. The free note catches everything else that matters later: “traveled, dosed Saturday,” “started new BP med,” “held dose per Dr.” — the single field that makes the diary a record instead of a grid.

Where each line pays off — the diary’s compounding interest

The diary is upstream of nearly every file on this site. The hold-or-proceed message writes itself from the last two lines (“score 3 both days post-dose, fluids holding”). The plateau audit’s adherence check is a ten-second column scan instead of an archaeology dig. The prior authorization gets its treatment-response evidence — dose column against weight column — in exactly the shape reviewers respect, and the quarterly export photographs the card into the permanent folder. The restart intake receives round one’s entire story on a page: ceiling dose, friction points, what mitigations the notes column recorded. Even the renewal negotiation borrows it — tenure and adherence are retention arguments, and the diary is their receipt. Sixty seconds weekly, compounding across every future conversation: the best ratio in the whole patient-ops toolkit.

The monthly review — thirty seconds, three questions

Last injection of the month, read the four lines just written and ask: Is the score trending down within this dose? (Expected — tolerance building; a flat 2–3 is a titration-pace conversation.) Is the weight line doing what the expectation math predicted for this phase? (Titration months wobble; judge gently.) Does any note need promoting to a message? (The “new med started” note that never got mentioned; the travel-shifted dose that became a pattern.) Three yeses or handled items, and the diary goes back on the fridge until next week — the entire governance system of your therapy, running on one index card and a pen.

FAQ

What should a GLP-1 dose diary track?

Seven fields weekly: date, dose, injection site, a 0–3 side-effect score, worst symptom in two words, same-scale weight, and one free note.

How does the diary help with injection-site rotation?

Logging a simple site code each week makes rotation self-enforcing — next week’s site is any quadrant but last week’s, per your provider’s technique training.

Paper or app?

Whichever you’ll actually touch weekly — the diary’s value is its unbroken line, and a fridge card that gets filled beats an app that doesn’t; photograph the card quarterly into your records folder.