For most people, living with a chronic illness often means experiencing a laundry list of symptoms, varying in severity and how they affect the body. These symptoms might recur daily, or some of them may fluctuate in frequency or timing throughout the day.

At Human, we want our users to easily be able to keep a record of their health journey accurately, without the frustration and menial data entry that many patients are so used to when it comes to healthcare and health tracking. That’s why we recommend curating the symptoms you track daily to ensure your Human experience is as smooth as possible, providing you with the most impact for the least amount of effort.

Ways to track your symptoms using Human

Daily symptom check-in

You can access the daily check-in from the Home page. We recommend using this feature to monitor the impact of symptoms you experience most days.

You can also toggle which symptoms are in your daily check-in via your profile settings:

Log symptoms as they happen with Global Add

The Global Add button in the toolbar allows you to access multiple features within Human quickly and easily, including rating symptoms. We recommend using this feature to track the impact of symptoms that only happen sometimes, so that they don’t take up unnecessary time in your daily check-in.

With this feature, you can also log the specific time that a symptom happened or started, and you can also add a custom note. You’ll then be able to see this information in your Timeline.

Health event logging

Sometimes symptoms can be related to a larger health event, like getting sick with an infection, or in relation to an injury or medical procedure. Tracking these events might help you reduce the amount of symptoms you’re tracking daily.

For example, tracking ‘Influenza’ as a health event might be easier than having to log that you have a runny nose, sore throat, and cough for 3 days in a row.

How do I decide what to track ‘most days’ and ‘only sometimes’?

Tracking symptoms that only happen sometimes as individual events reduces the time your check-in takes, and also makes it easier to see an overview of when they happened on your Insights charts. It might also help make communication with your healthcare practitioner clearer, if they can see which symptoms you’re rating every day and which you only need to record when they flare up.

For example, someone with arthritis may choose to rate the impact of their “joint stiffness” in their check-in, because they wake up feeling this on most days. They may then individually log symptoms like “knee pain” or “wrist pain” as they happen, depending on how their condition is impacting certain joints at that point in time.

We believe that the best way to track your health journey is the way that works best for you – this article is only a guide. Human puts you in the drivers seat, so that you can understand how your symptoms impact you, putting you in a position to better advocate for your health.

‍