Its been recommended to me to start a daily log consisting of my MS symptoms. I realize a history of that would prove very helpful in ongoing treatments, insurance claims, disability, etc. - I should have starting doing that 15 years ago when I got the first set of positive MRI's.

Question: Is there an app that anyone has come across that they would recommend for tracking daily symptoms? Perhaps something that would integrate therapies, symptoms, exercise, diet all in one place?

Thanks for your feedback!

Chad
Dx 1999 - RRMS

hi chad,

welcome to NT.
i would take a piece of paper and lay out the info you thing would be helpful in your particular case. rework it til you're happy, then xerox it. get a clip and start your own notebook. what a great idea to keep a symptom journal.

Funny though it may sound, you could also try the myfitnesspal app. It's not quite as easy to review your daily symptoms and get a feel for how you're progressing along over an average. But it is simple enough to jot down how you're feeling on any particular day, as it has daily note features.

If nothing else it's easy to track your nutrition and your exercises, even adding your own if you're doing any kind of physical therapy. Toss in a Fitbit or some of the other recognized techs that directly link to it and you can see everything from how well you sleep each night, how active you are each day, and even your minute to minute pulse rates...

Personally I like the Fitbit since I'm terrible at keeping track of daily things, I'm even worse at trying to decide the is-a-symptom-isn't-a-symptom game. So the Fitbit works really well for me so at the end of the week I can see...hmmm I didn't move for six hours three days ago, but I wasn't asleep....oh yeah I couldn't because of..... And then I simply need to fill in the blanks... Even if it wasn't a day where I really had a lull in moving as such but my activity level was a fraction of the day before and such.

But then I have a far better memory the further back events occurred, ask me today what I had for dinner last night...couldn't tell you... But last Sunday I had smoked brisket with a baked potato, sweet corn, baked beans and garlic bread... The Sunday before that we ate at Olive Garden, I had three glasses of raspberry lemonade, a bowl of salad with allllll the black olives (6 them ) a sneaky pepperochini (yuck) and the smoked mozerella fondanta.... I could go on but gets redundant, so jogging my memory with 'ah something was off that day' makes it easy for me to tell what exactly it was.

Another option is using an excel document, depending on your technical bend, poor forgotten excel, so much more useful than the accounting everyone attributes to it. But would be more helpful if your symptoms are rather stable in that everyday doesn't seem to bring a new bag of surprises and you're just wanting to see how much they're really affecting you day to day. Like say you know you have migraines/headaches but never stopped to really count out how many in the course of a month... You get what you consider to be 'occasional' numbness... Whatever your symptoms maybe.

But with excel it would be relatively easy enough to chart your symptoms/nutrition/exercise and gain feedback as a straight day in and day out, or an overall monthly percentage, or even weekly progression. I have to say relatively as it really depends on your comfort with computers, my DH could do make the backbone in a few hours, i might need a day, my uncle could have done it in minutes, my mother... Get back to her in a year, while my father.... Would likely die of natural causes before even figuring out how to open excel.