Log your flare status, pain, fatigue, and medication adherence to get an Autoimmune Score and actionable next steps you can share with your specialist.
You wake up swollen and exhausted and the question your rheumatologist will ask in three weeks is already forming: was that a flare, or just a bad stretch? Most people answer it from memory, badly, because flares do not announce themselves and the things that tip the balance — a stressful month, two nights of broken sleep, a trigger food, a couple of skipped doses — are invisible until you look back across a log. This tracker is that backward look, turned into a daily habit. You enter your Current Flare Status (None through Severe), Pain Level on a 0–10 scale, Fatigue Level, Medication Adherence, Active Symptoms Count, Food Trigger Exposure, Activity Level, Sleep Hours, Stress Level, and Inflammation Markers. The tool produces an Autoimmune Score out of 100 and a plain-language Autoimmune Verdict.
This tool works for a range of autoimmune diagnoses — lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto's, Sjogren's, Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, and others — because it tracks the shared language of autoimmune management: flare activity, fatigue, medication adherence, and triggers. The specific inputs apply across conditions even when the underlying biology differs.
Why flare status needs a daily field, not just a monthly memory
The Current Flare Status dropdown — No flare, Mild flare, Moderate flare, Severe flare — is the single most important field in the tool because it anchors everything else. A pain score of 6 during a No flare day means something different from a 6 during a Moderate flare. A fatigue level of Severe during a documented flare week is useful clinical data; the same level during a week logged as No flare suggests something else is worth investigating.
Most people with autoimmune conditions see their specialist every one to three months. The question of whether 'this was a bad stretch or a true flare' comes up at every visit and is genuinely hard to answer from memory alone. Logging flare status daily — even just selecting 'No flare' on the good days — creates a calendar of disease activity that makes the answer concrete.
Food triggers and the Autoimmune Score
The Food Trigger Exposure field uses four tiers: No known triggers consumed, Avoided all identified triggers, Exposed to 1 trigger, and Exposed to multiple triggers. It is deliberately calibrated to your personal trigger list rather than a generic elimination diet framework. What triggers one person with lupus may not trigger another; what provokes a Crohn's flare is highly individual. The tool tracks exposure relative to your own identified triggers, which you define through the Food and Triggers Diary.
Over several weeks, patterns often emerge that feel like confirmation of things you suspected but could not prove — a string of high-trigger-exposure days followed by flare activity three days later, or a correlation between stress spikes and flare severity that stands out more clearly on a chart than in memory. The Autoimmune Score uses trigger exposure as one of ten inputs in its composite, so its influence on the score is visible and trackable.
Medication adherence and its influence on disease activity
The Medication Adherence input ranges from All doses taken through Missed 1 dose, Missed 2+ doses, and No medications today. For many autoimmune conditions, the medications involved — DMARDs, biologics, immunosuppressants, corticosteroids — require consistent dosing to maintain therapeutic levels. A missed dose often does not produce immediate consequences, which makes it easy to underestimate the cumulative effect of occasional misses.
Logging adherence alongside flare status and inflammation markers creates a time-shifted picture of consequences. If your logs show a cluster of 'Missed 1–2 doses' entries in the two weeks before a documented flare, that connection becomes visible in your data even when it was not obvious in the moment. That kind of causal trail is worth showing to your rheumatologist or immunologist.
Activity level as a daily gauge of functional impact
The Activity Level field runs from Normal activity through Modified activity, Severely limited, and Bedbound/unable to leave home. This is a functional measure, not an exercise log — it captures whether your autoimmune condition restricted what you could do that day. Tracking it alongside pain and fatigue scores shows the relationship between symptom burden and real-world function.
For conditions like lupus or MS where fatigue and pain fluctuate, the Activity Level input often tells a story that purely numerical pain scores miss. A person might log a pain level of 5 but an Activity Level of 'Severely limited' because fatigue and post-exertional malaise prevented functioning at a level that a 5 pain score might suggest was manageable. The combination of fields tells a fuller story.
Inflammation markers and bringing lab data into the picture
The Inflammation Markers field — Normal, Slightly elevated, Elevated, High — is designed for you to enter based on recent lab results. Autoimmune conditions often involve periodic blood tests measuring CRP, ESR, or condition-specific markers. Rather than keeping those results in a separate app or paper folder, logging them here puts lab trends alongside symptom trends in one timeline.
When your Autoimmune Score drops and your logged inflammation markers are Elevated, the combination tells a cleaner story than either data point alone. Track it consistently and you will have something real to show your specialist — a dated log of inflammation markers and symptom scores, free to start and private by default.
How to use it
- Select your Current Flare Status — be honest about whether this is a flare day even if it feels mild; accurate status logging is the backbone of the trend data.
- Enter Pain Level from 0–10 and select Fatigue Level from the five-tier dropdown from Minimal through Debilitating.
- Log Medication Adherence and Active Symptoms Count (0–20), then select your Food Trigger Exposure for the day.
- Complete the Activity Level, Sleep Hours, Stress Level, and Inflammation Markers fields for a full Autoimmune Score calculation.
- Check the Flare Tracker tab to add context notes on flare triggers and duration, and the Medication Log to document side effects or dose timing.
Who it's for
- Person with lupus managing frequent flares — Logs daily flare status, stress level, and food trigger exposure for 60 days, identifying that high-stress weeks consistently precede flare activity by 3–5 days and bringing that pattern to a rheumatology appointment.
- Someone with rheumatoid arthritis starting a new biologic — Tracks Autoimmune Score weekly against medication adherence and inflammation markers to document treatment response timeline for their specialist.
- Person with Crohn's disease in remission — Uses the Food and Triggers Diary alongside bowel-related symptom tracking to identify whether a specific dietary pattern correlates with early flare signals.
- Individual with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and fatigue — Logs fatigue level and activity capacity daily to distinguish between thyroid-driven fatigue and sleep-driven fatigue, sharing the pattern with their endocrinologist.
Key terms
- Flare
- A period of increased autoimmune disease activity, typically involving higher inflammation, more symptoms, and greater functional limitation than baseline.
- Autoimmune Score
- A 0–100 composite score reflecting flare status, pain, fatigue, medication adherence, trigger exposure, activity level, sleep, stress, and inflammation markers. A personal trend metric, not a clinical disease activity score.
- DMARD
- Disease-modifying antirheumatic drug — a class of medications used to slow autoimmune disease progression. Examples include methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine, and biological agents.
- Post-exertional malaise
- A worsening of symptoms following physical or cognitive exertion, common in several autoimmune and chronic conditions. Distinct from normal exercise fatigue in that rest does not reliably restore function.
Frequently asked questions
Does this tracker work for multiple autoimmune conditions at once?
Yes. The fields are general enough to apply across most autoimmune diagnoses. Log based on your primary or most active condition, and use the notes in the Flare Tracker tab to note if a specific organ system or symptom cluster is responsible for a given entry.
How should I score Active Symptoms Count?
Count the number of distinct symptoms you are experiencing today — joint pain, rash, fatigue, oral sores, eye inflammation, swollen lymph nodes, etc. Each separate symptom type counts as one. A flare with joint pain and a rash is 2; one with joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, and a rash is 4.
The tool flags missed doses — should I contact my doctor?
The prompt to discuss medication adherence is a reminder, not an urgent alert. If you miss occasional doses, the tool notes it. If you are missing doses because of side effects or cost barriers, those are worth raising with your care team because solutions often exist.
Can I use this during a hospitalization or severe flare?
Focus on your care during a severe episode. You can log retroactively once you are stable — entering approximate scores for the days you could not log is better than leaving gaps in your trend data.