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Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

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Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#71
I make an app called Reflect [1] which is geared towards tracking these kinds of things. Admittedly, sticking with the habit and forming it in the first place can be hard. If you’re interested in talking about it, let me know! We have a discord that we link to in the app and that’s the fastest way to get a hold of me.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#72
This might be relevant to you: I am building a free, open source self-help app. It has a quick daily check-in, a journal, and habit tracking, so some parts could work for keeping a simple record. I originally made it for myself because all the apps in this space were so expensive, and then decided to keep it free so people who can't afford those can use it too.

It is in very early development, but I am very invested in it, so you can expect frequent updates. If you are willing to try it, I would be really grateful for feedback.

Since you are building something yourself: my project is open source (https://github.com/Selftend/selftend), so feel free to take anything useful from it. Honestly, input from someone who has lived through quitting six systems would make it better.

And I would gladly have a conversation about this - no need to pay anyone, I would just enjoy being able to help. Contact is in my profile.

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#73

> Im building something for this You've probably answered your own question here. Welcome to the age of bespoke LLM coded apps where almost everyone can build the thing they want.

Haha fair point - edit: I did build one already, quit that one

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#75
How about using a dedicated paper notebook to log everything that comes to your mind related to this illness?

And also, if the illness is somehow related to food/habits, more or less, then that could also be tracked - like what you're eating and how your body responded afterwards (I mean, within, let's say, 24 hours).

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#76

Considered building something like this over a decade ago (because my mum has chronic health problems that are manageable but require a lot of management) and I'd recently been diagnosed with Chrohn's. I thought about the design/approach that would work for her and her use case and my own and then I realised I'd be holding peoples most personal data (medical) and realised that I wasn't comfortable building a system t…

thanks for the insight. the data risk is something that I havent went into. What would have changed it for you? (local, export and delete, or maybe something where the patient owns the key?)

Separately, Id really like to know what structure you keep your health.md? I go between fixed responses, and free text responses and havent really settled on anything yet.

Seems like the appointment and coordination is mostly handled, which leaves the actual symptom part! Thanks again for your response.

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#77

What do you need to track? Are you trying to track something like ten different things or just one or two?

It's kind of open ended. Id like to track as many things as possible, so that I can see what instigates a flare, or what leads to my low energy days.

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#78
post #26

You can get a guy online to call you every day and yell at you if you didn't do the thing.[0] That's probably what's missing here, some kind of external pressure to do the thing. At least that's what I've found helpful, I couldn't rely on willpower for long term behavior change, so I just change my environment in a way that makes doing the thing become the path of least resistance. Or you could tie it to an existing…

Im shocked that this is a service, thats really interesting. And yes, ive tried logging based on psychological checkpoints, but I found how I really felt is lost by the time I log something at the end of the day.

Re: Ask HN: I've quit six systems for tracking my illness. What works?

#80
post #63

What i did (been doing it for like 5 months so far) is keep track of my day (just using Logseq just type in things like: "5:00 -> 5:30 checking Email" and such .. for the whole day, but i found that when i'm not home there will be some gaps, and that I usully fill back form memroy at the end of the day (which leads to maybe some gaps?) usully what I do I track (in the md file) day by day: my mood, what I eat, do, pla…

Yeah I feel the same way about filing from memory. I said this higher up in the thread, but at the end of the day how I really felt is kind of gone, and im filling it in from memory.

The lactose point is exactly what I am trying to work on right now. Do you just upload data or do you have a specific question/md file you use to get that result?

And finally, you mentioned that you are looking for external sources and pulling it into logs. Have any external sources been helpful or? (ex: lactose was from self reported right?)

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