Guide
How to keep track of a flare without turning it into a job.
Updated: 23 September 2026
Flares are the worst time to start a health diary and the most useful time to have one. The answer is to make the record small enough that you can still do it on the worst day.
Three lines is enough. Anything more is a bonus, not a duty.
The smallest record worth keeping
If you write nothing else, write these three, once:
- The date it started
- What it has stopped you doing
- What you've tried
Written on the first day, those three lines will tell you more in six months than a page of detail you never managed to write.
As it goes on
One line a day is plenty, and a missed day isn't a failure. If you can, note the thing that would be hard to reconstruct later:
- Whether today was better, the same, or worse than yesterday
- Anything new that turned up
- Anything that made the day more bearable
- Anything you had to cancel
When it eases
This is the part almost everybody skips, and it's the part that makes the record worth having. On the day it lifts, note the date and roughly how long it lasted.
Without an end date, a record of flares turns into a list of bad days with no shape. With one, you can say "four flares since spring, the longest eleven days", which is a sentence a clinician can actually use.
What a record can honestly show you
Over months, a record can show how often flares happen, how long they last, what they interrupt, and what was going on around them. That's worth a great deal at an appointment.
What it can't show is why. Two things happening near each other may be coincidence, and reading a pattern as a cause is the fastest way to end up chasing the wrong thing, or blaming yourself for something you didn't do. Notice patterns, note them, and let them stay questions.
What not to bother with
Detail you'll never read again costs energy you don't have. Long free text on a day you can barely sit up, hourly ratings, anything that turns into homework, and anything that makes you feel you have failed for missing a day. If a record is making the flare harder, it's the wrong record.
How taluvu does it
A check in takes about a minute: how the day felt, how much energy you had, and anything you want to add in your own words. There are no streaks and no scores, and nothing is withheld for missing a day.
Later, those days become a calendar you can look back at and a summary you can take to an appointment. Days nobody recorded stay plain, because a gap is honest and a guess isn't.
Questions people ask
What should I write down during a flare?
The date it started, what it has stopped you doing, and what you've tried. Then one line a day if you can, and the date it eases. That's enough to describe it accurately months later.
Does missing days ruin the record?
No. Gaps are part of an honest record, and any summary worth trusting counts the days nobody wrote anything rather than pretending they went well.
Can a flare record tell me what triggered it?
It can show you what was happening around the same time, which is worth noticing and worth mentioning. It can't show cause, and things that happen together are often coincidence.
Where to go next
Keeping the record without the work
taluvu is a chronic illness tracker for iPhone and for your web browser. It records how the days actually go, in about a minute a day, and turns that into something you can take to an appointment. On iPhone it's on the App Store as Taluvu Chronic Illness Tracker, and on a computer it runs in your browser with nothing to install.
Taluvu Chronic Illness Tracker
TALUVU LTD · Health and Fitness · iPhone
Free to download, with a Taluvu Pro subscription inside
Nothing on this page is medical advice. If you are worried about your health, contact your GP practice or NHS 111. In an emergency ring 999, and if you are struggling to keep yourself safe, Samaritans are on 116 123.