Putting your life in order: How visual health timelines might help people with PTSD

Since founding Pictal Health about a year and a half ago, I’ve been helping patients with mysterious, rare, and complicated health issues visualize their health history and symptoms so they can communicate better with their doctors. As of today, I’ve worked with 45 people, including 10 Veterans (through a grant-funded project with the VA.)

As someone who has experienced mysterious symptoms that are unacknowledged or misunderstood, I’ve been focused on helping others like me; people who don’t fit neatly into diagnostic categories. They often end up bouncing from doctor to doctor, telling their stories over and over. They get lost in our tangled medical system, and organizing and visualizing their health history helps them to a) tell their story with more confidence and b) more efficiently help their doctors understand what they’re experiencing.

Along the way, I’ve worked with a number of people with PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder): a few Vietnam and Iraq war veterans, women who have lived through assaults and abuse, and a person who experienced a traumatic and life-changing medical error. In fact, I started to see that some of my clients with the most complex and numerous physical symptoms had a trauma in their past.