mySymptoms Food Diary

I have been using this ap for nearly a week after my gastroenterologist suggested I keep a food and symptom diary. I don’t want to have to do this but if I am going to invest the time, I want to have useful data. This ap allows a lot of individualization, both of data type as well as granularity. It is taking a little longer to figure out how to optimally use than a less customizable ap but I greatly appreciate having this flexibility. So, e.g., if I want to list only 2 items for a day, such as “coffee” and “heartburn” I could do that. Or if I want to list detailed ingredients and quantities and exact times with free text comments in multiple categories, I can also do that. If over time I realize I need to go more or less granular or add or subtract a category, I can do that. After using for a few days, the selectable entries became much quicker as the ap defaults to listing prior entries as available selections for subsequent days. If you are like me, you are taking some of the same meds and supplements and eating many of the same foods each day. I don’t have enough data yet for extensive analysis yet but look forward to exploring these features more as well. There is a wealth of information available here, so far it has been well worth the time I have invested.

This is the first time I’ve EVER reviewed an app, because it’s the first time I’ve ever been so impressed! The functionality is amazing— so much more than you’d expect for an inexpensive little app. The ability to toggle on/off certain configurations / ways the algorithm works / analysis period to find top suspects— is evidence of the care and pride into this app. I could not believe when I went on vacation, the times of each entry changed for that day, so I didn’t have to do any more work (ie, pretending to be on a different timezone that day) so my “X hours after” ingestion values weren’t wrecked— it just worked, without any human adjustment needed! Clearly someone has thought long and hard about every scenario, and taken steps to address it in the app. I think the ability to either create a new recipe or replace all previous instances of the recipe with your new entry is essential, and without it, I doubt the results would ever be accurate. Basically I’m blown away by this app!!!! I should note that I find technology intuitive in general. If you want a more beginner’s app, and you’re willing to trade functionality for ease of learning the app, maybe you’d want to choose a different one. Personally I’m so glad I didn’t. This app rocks!!!

I was diagnosed with celiac disease two years ago. Even though I maintain a strict gluten-free diet, I am still having issues and sensitivities. After two weeks of tracking all of my food, medication, symptoms, and other details with this app, I have identified a couple of foods that are causing me issues, even though they’re labeled gluten free. I have not use the analytics yet, but just using the app and paying attention has made it much easier for me to identify what is going on and my reactions. Although it took me a couple days to understand the easiest process to add food, now that I’ve gotten the hang of it I think it’s quite easy compared to writing it all by hand (which I’ve tried to do several times in the past always given up due to the time it took). Some foods to need to be added to the database but obviously the more people do so, the better the database gets, the easier it is to use. I really like that you can scan barcodes to add package foods quickly; and, that the ingredients can be listed. It’s great that they’ve added things like mood and exercise as well, since I easily forget how much my mood and energy levels can be affected by my diet. I was informed when I inquired that the developers are working on apple health integration. I’m looking forward to being able to print out the PDF of all of the information I’ve been tracking and bringing it to my G.I. specialist and being able to get a nutritionist now that I have information for them to work with. And, curious to see how the analytics work. Overall, a great app for those in need of one to help them figure out their diet and what is causing issues in their health. -celiacceline