A symptom tracker for chronic illness you will actually keep
Most people with a chronic illness are told to "keep track of it" and then given nothing that fits a bad day. Long questionnaires get abandoned within a week. A record you can keep for months beats a detailed one you stop after five days.
What to record every day
- Three to six symptoms, in your own words. The ones you would mention at an appointment, named the way you describe them.
- How much, on one scale. 0 to 10 for each symptom, every day, including the good days. Zeros are data too.
- Sleep, energy and pain. Three numbers that give the rest of the day context.
- One line of notes, only when something was different. A new medication you were prescribed, a trip, a cold, a flare after a long day.
What to skip
- Food diaries, unless your clinician asked for one.
- Hourly logging. Once a day, at the same time, is easier to keep.
- Anything that needs you to calculate or interpret. Your job is to record; your clinician reads the pattern with you.
A checklist for the first week
- Pick the time of day you will log, and set one reminder for it.
- Write your symptom list down before you start, so the names stay the same.
- Log every day for seven days, even when nothing changed.
- At the end of the week, look at the record once. Then keep going.
How Plainlog does it
Plainlog is a ten-second daily check-in. Your own symptom names, a 0 to 10 row for each, sleep, energy and pain, an optional note, and one Save button. "Same as yesterday" fills in a stable day with one tap. At the end of the month it gives you one page your doctor will read: a symptom table with averages and days logged, a day-by-day grid and your notes.
It keeps everything on your device: no account, no email, no analytics.
Price: Free for 14 days, then $14.99 once. Viewing, editing, trends and PDF export never lock.
Plainlog records what you enter and reports it back. It does not diagnose, interpret, suggest treatment or calculate anything about medication. It is a notebook, not a clinician.