Comprehensive, customizable wellness tracking and visualization
October 7, 2013 1:16 PM Subscribe
I need a holistic personal wellness tracking system and application. Details/requirements inside.
By "holistic" I don't mean "woo" (although I am not woo-phobic), rather, I mean that I have a whole bunch of things I need to track about my entire physical and mental/emotional state and want to be able to gather/input/display in one centralized way. I've had life-long migraines that have increased in frequency/intensity over the past two years and finding a treatment solution is proving elusive. I basically have a head-ache all. the. time. and simply identifying the usual triggers is not cutting it for me.
(Note: I am under the care of a neurologist and know about (and have done) keeping a food diary, the elimination diet, not getting dehydrated, etc. I am not looking for diagnoses, migraine prevention strategies - I know what to do, as far as that goes, on that front.)
Requirements / Everything I want to track:
1. Food intake: quantity, timing, description, etc.
2. Water/Fluid intake: quantity, timing, description, etc.
3. Sleep amount, quality, position, to-bed and wake times
4. Blood sugar stuff
5. Weight/BMI
6. Menstrual cycle stuff: date, ovulation, cramps, other
7. Physical symptoms with descriptions
-. headache: location, severity, description of pain
- nausea/diarrhea: duration, frequency, description
- ocular irregularities: duration, description
- other physical sensations: out-of-body floating, tremors, vertigo, etc.
8. Environmental factors:
- Computer work: duration, type, where (home office, couch, bed, chair), timing
- Lighting or visual environment description
- Air quality
- Weather: foggy/sunny/rainy, barometric pressure changes, earthquake activity, etc.
- Travel: plane, sailboat time, etc.
9. Exercise/Activity: type, duration, intensity, timing (including non-physically strenuous things like meditation, reading, massage, chiropractic, therapy, etc.)
10. Medication intake: OTC and prescription timing, amounts
11. Emotional state: stressed, happy, sleepy, etc.
Ideally I'd be able to enter data both via my computer (software or website) and via an app on my iPhone (or have it happen somewhat automatically, like my Fitbit Flex syncs to phone and website). I want to be able to add data-points and make modifications as needed and see all of the points mapped together in a visual way. I want to be able to paint a better picture about the inception and life of a migraine.
Example:
"So on that day it looks like I only got 5 hours of sleep and had two beers the night before, woke up an hour earlier than normal, was in the middle of my menstrual cycle, had worked on my laptop at my desk for 6 hours with no breaks, did not stretch or meditate that morning, had toast with almond butter for breakfast. It was also somewhat windier than normal, with lots of clouds scudding past so the light outside my office window was changing from sunny to cloudy quite often. I was also on a work deadline so was anxious and stressed. I had one cup of tea. At about 11am I started to feel very happy and positive about life, almost like I was high. An hour later I started seeing little spots in front of my eyes and felt faintly dizzy. Then I got a headache. It started as a spike in the lower left quadrant of my head but has morphed into feeling like a band around the lower half of my head. My eyes watered a little bit when I went out for lunch. Later that day I took three Advil and laid down for a half hour but was annoyed and anxious the whole time because someone's car alarm kept going off for an unknown reason." Etc.
I am not a developer so rolling my own would not be ideal; however, I am tech-savvy and do have lots of developer friends so could probably find someone to help me with some light integration/set-up.
(It's entirely possible this tracker does not exist (yet) -- I've talked to my neurologist, therapist, physical therapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist and a chiropractor about finding something like this and they all said the same thing: "Wow! That would be so cool. I don't know of anything like that - only things that capture certain pieces but not the whole pie. You should create it!" So… that might be a possibility…)
TLDR: Essentially, I want to track every single little thing about my physical existence and compile/analyze the data for patterns, trends and connections. I know there are various discrete apps out there that enable one to track pieces of the above, but I want a full-body tracking solution and can't find one.
Thanks for any leads, thoughts, etc.
By "holistic" I don't mean "woo" (although I am not woo-phobic), rather, I mean that I have a whole bunch of things I need to track about my entire physical and mental/emotional state and want to be able to gather/input/display in one centralized way. I've had life-long migraines that have increased in frequency/intensity over the past two years and finding a treatment solution is proving elusive. I basically have a head-ache all. the. time. and simply identifying the usual triggers is not cutting it for me.
(Note: I am under the care of a neurologist and know about (and have done) keeping a food diary, the elimination diet, not getting dehydrated, etc. I am not looking for diagnoses, migraine prevention strategies - I know what to do, as far as that goes, on that front.)
Requirements / Everything I want to track:
1. Food intake: quantity, timing, description, etc.
2. Water/Fluid intake: quantity, timing, description, etc.
3. Sleep amount, quality, position, to-bed and wake times
4. Blood sugar stuff
5. Weight/BMI
6. Menstrual cycle stuff: date, ovulation, cramps, other
7. Physical symptoms with descriptions
-. headache: location, severity, description of pain
- nausea/diarrhea: duration, frequency, description
- ocular irregularities: duration, description
- other physical sensations: out-of-body floating, tremors, vertigo, etc.
8. Environmental factors:
- Computer work: duration, type, where (home office, couch, bed, chair), timing
- Lighting or visual environment description
- Air quality
- Weather: foggy/sunny/rainy, barometric pressure changes, earthquake activity, etc.
- Travel: plane, sailboat time, etc.
9. Exercise/Activity: type, duration, intensity, timing (including non-physically strenuous things like meditation, reading, massage, chiropractic, therapy, etc.)
10. Medication intake: OTC and prescription timing, amounts
11. Emotional state: stressed, happy, sleepy, etc.
Ideally I'd be able to enter data both via my computer (software or website) and via an app on my iPhone (or have it happen somewhat automatically, like my Fitbit Flex syncs to phone and website). I want to be able to add data-points and make modifications as needed and see all of the points mapped together in a visual way. I want to be able to paint a better picture about the inception and life of a migraine.
Example:
"So on that day it looks like I only got 5 hours of sleep and had two beers the night before, woke up an hour earlier than normal, was in the middle of my menstrual cycle, had worked on my laptop at my desk for 6 hours with no breaks, did not stretch or meditate that morning, had toast with almond butter for breakfast. It was also somewhat windier than normal, with lots of clouds scudding past so the light outside my office window was changing from sunny to cloudy quite often. I was also on a work deadline so was anxious and stressed. I had one cup of tea. At about 11am I started to feel very happy and positive about life, almost like I was high. An hour later I started seeing little spots in front of my eyes and felt faintly dizzy. Then I got a headache. It started as a spike in the lower left quadrant of my head but has morphed into feeling like a band around the lower half of my head. My eyes watered a little bit when I went out for lunch. Later that day I took three Advil and laid down for a half hour but was annoyed and anxious the whole time because someone's car alarm kept going off for an unknown reason." Etc.
I am not a developer so rolling my own would not be ideal; however, I am tech-savvy and do have lots of developer friends so could probably find someone to help me with some light integration/set-up.
(It's entirely possible this tracker does not exist (yet) -- I've talked to my neurologist, therapist, physical therapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist and a chiropractor about finding something like this and they all said the same thing: "Wow! That would be so cool. I don't know of anything like that - only things that capture certain pieces but not the whole pie. You should create it!" So… that might be a possibility…)
TLDR: Essentially, I want to track every single little thing about my physical existence and compile/analyze the data for patterns, trends and connections. I know there are various discrete apps out there that enable one to track pieces of the above, but I want a full-body tracking solution and can't find one.
Thanks for any leads, thoughts, etc.
Response by poster: QuantID looks promising, thanks! (assuming I can get it to stop spontaneously/continually crashing on my iPhone 4S OS 5.1.1 ...)
posted by hapax_legomenon at 2:30 PM on October 7, 2013
posted by hapax_legomenon at 2:30 PM on October 7, 2013
Tictrac is also looking promising. Have you checked that one out?
posted by thatone at 9:42 AM on October 25, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by thatone at 9:42 AM on October 25, 2013 [1 favorite]
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posted by thatone at 1:34 PM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]