The Cycle & Symptom Pattern Tracker
A free three-cycle tracker that turns "I feel crazy" into "here is the pattern I am living with."
Free. Subscribe to the Wednesday newsletter and the tracker link is in every issue. Unsubscribe any time.
Tracking isn't obsession. It's advocacy.
Structured daily ratings give you something clinicians, employers, partners and therapists can work with.
A self-defence tool
Against gaslighting, including the kind that comes from inside your own head. Your evidence, in your own hand, made on the day.
A translation tool
Between how a day felt and the language clinicians use: severity, timing, and how much it got in the way.
A planning tool
Once you can see your harder days coming, you can plan work, study, relationships and rest around them.
What you track.
Built for any condition that might change across your cycle, not just PMDD.
- Cycle day and bleeding
- Hormonal medication, such as the pill, a hormonal coil or HRT, as context
- Daily 0–6 ratings for mood, anxiety or irritability, sleep, fatigue, pain, migraine, dizziness or standing symptoms, gut, sensory or histamine-type symptoms, and focus
- How much your symptoms got in the way that day
- Your medications, as a record only, with no advice
- "What changed today?" for anything else worth noting
- A three-cycle summary and appointment prompts
Example layout · made-up ratings · darker means harder
Symptoms first. Cycle later.
Knowing where you are in your cycle can shape what you notice. In one older study, women who were told they were premenstrual reported more physical symptoms than women who weren't, whatever phase they were actually in. Rating your day first, then adding your cycle dates, keeps your record honest and harder to dismiss.
Emerging evidence
"Premenstrual symptoms: a reinterpretation", 1977 · Science · doi (opens in a new tab)
Rate your day
Each evening, give each symptom a number from 0 (none) to 6 (extreme). About two minutes.
Note what changed
Poor sleep, illness, a hard week at work. One line is enough.
Add your period dates
Fill in your cycle days afterwards. The tracker estimates mid-cycle for you and labels it as an estimate.
Read your summary
After three cycles, compare the week before your period with the week after it.
Two cycles is the clinical minimum. Three helps you trust your own pattern.
The NHS, the RCOG and IAPMD all ask for daily tracking across at least two cycles. If your two cycles give mixed results, researchers suggest tracking a third.
Established science
Eisenlohr-Moul et al., 2017 · Am J Psychiatry · doi (opens in a new tab)
What the tracker isn't.
It isn't a diagnosis
The tracker shows your averages and your pattern. It doesn't score PMDD or any other condition. Only a clinician can make a diagnosis, using daily tracking like this.
If you're being assessed for PMDD
IAPMD offers a free printable version of the DRSP (Daily Record of Severity of Problems), a validated daily chart used in PMDD assessment: IAPMD symptom tracker (opens in a new tab). If you'd rather use an app, Me v PMDD is a free, separate app: Me v PMDD (opens in a new tab).
Questions
My cycles are irregular. Can I still use it?
Yes. Rate every day as normal and add period start dates when they happen. Tracking for longer than three cycles can help when cycles are irregular.
I'm on hormonal contraception or HRT. Does it still work?
Yes. Record it in the medication context section so the pattern can be read alongside it. Please don't change any medication because of what you see; take the summary to your prescriber.
Who sees my ratings?
Only you, and anyone you choose to show. The tracker is your own file. We never see what you write in it.
Is it really free?
Yes. If it helps, you can leave a tip on Ko-fi (opens in a new tab), but you never have to.
Plain-English cycle science, every Wednesday.
One short email a week on how conditions change across the menstrual cycle, with every finding labelled by how strong the evidence is.
The free Cycle & Symptom Pattern Tracker is linked in every issue.
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The tracker, the guides and the newsletter are free and will stay that way. If something here helped you feel explained rather than broken, a tip keeps the research coming.
If you need help now
If your life is at risk right now, or you don't feel you can keep yourself safe, call 999 or go to A&E. For urgent help that isn't an emergency, use NHS 111 online or call 111 and select the mental health option. You can call Samaritans free, day or night, on 116 123. If you'd rather text, text SHOUT to 85258. More crisis support