Food & symptoms · IBS & Gut Symptoms
An IBS tracker that looks past food, because it usually isn't only food
Everyone with IBS starts by suspecting food, because food is the visible variable. It's often part of it. But stress, sleep and, for a lot of people, the menstrual cycle move IBS symptoms at least as much — and a tracker that only records meals guarantees you will blame the wrong thing and narrow your diet for nothing.
For anyone tracking gut symptoms whose triggers aren't turning out to be simple.
Why this is hard to keep track of
- Food takes all the blame and explains only part of the variance
- Symptoms lag their cause, so the meal you blame is rarely the meal responsible
- The menstrual cycle is a large factor and almost never gets logged alongside
- Flares feel like they arrive from nowhere, which makes them feel unmanageable
Worth recording
- Symptoms, Bristol type, and severity
- Food, roughly, without turning it into a weighing exercise
- Stress and sleep, which are doing more work than most people expect
- Cycle day, if relevant
Cadence
A line a day, more during a flare
In practice
Say it once, in whatever words you have
The moments most worth recording are the ones where filling in a form is the least realistic thing in the world. A sentence, typed or dictated afterwards, is a much lower bar — and it carries the context a checkbox would have lost.
Called 4 tools
log_symptom(type: "cramping", bristol: 6, severity: 4)log_context(sleep: "poor", stress: "high")find_pattern(metric: "flare_days", group_by: "stress")correlate(a: "symptoms", b: "sleep")
Every figure here was counted from entries you made. The model picked which tools to call — it doesn't interpret, diagnose, or decide what anything means about anyone.
And then ask
The question the log can answer
Months of entries hold real answers to the questions you've been guessing at, and reading them properly has always meant a spreadsheet and a free evening — which is not a thing anyone in this situation has.
Ask in plain language. The answers come back with the numbers behind them, including when those numbers are too thin to mean anything yet — which is the more useful answer more often than people expect.
Called 3 tools
get_history(topic: "ibs", window: "6m")find_pattern(group_by: "antecedent")compare_periods(metric: "events")
Counts and averages over your own entries, nothing more. Where the data is confounded or too thin, the answer says so instead of rounding it into a conclusion.
The reason most people start
Something to actually bring to the appointment
You get fifteen minutes, once, after waiting months for it. The questions are specific and the honest answers are all some version of "I don't know, it's hard to say".
What this gives you: Symptom frequency and severity over months with the confounders visible, rather than a description of the worst fortnight.
- Export the date range you were asked about, as a file you can print
- Counts and timings rather than an impression of the worst week
- Your own notes kept alongside the numbers, in your words
- Nothing shared anywhere unless you choose to share it
What it won't do
- Diagnose anything, or suggest that it could
- Score a person, or rank them against anyone else
- Set a target for fewer events, or a streak of good days
- Recommend a treatment, a therapy, a diet or a medication change
- Share your record with a school, a clinician or anyone else on its own
It's a notebook that can do arithmetic and answer questions about itself. Deciding what any of it means is a job for you and the people advising you.
Early access
Start with what you're already trying to hold in your head
Tell us what you've been trying to keep track of and we'll set it up with you — recording the thing that's actually useful, at a cadence that survives a bad week.
- Founding accounts lock their price for life
- No card, no trial clock, no notifications designed to make you feel behind
- Export everything you've logged whenever you want
Also tracked
The rest of the picture
These overlap constantly, which is the point — the answer to a question about one of them is very often sitting in another one's data.
Elimination Diets
A sentence after meals, and whenever something changes
Low FODMAP
Logged through each challenge, reviewed at the end of it
Food Intolerance
A sentence after meals, symptoms whenever they show up
Food Allergy
Logged after the event, once everyone is safe
Gluten & Celiac
Logged when something goes wrong, plus a weekly line
Migraine Triggers
A line when an attack starts and one when it ends
Eczema & Skin Flares
A line a day during a flare, weekly otherwise
Keep the record without it becoming another job
Founding pricing is locked for accounts opened during early access.
Founding accounts lock their price for life. No card required.