Track PMS and PMDD symptoms, and bring a clear report to your doctor.

Why daily, and why two cycles

Memory is a bad witness for symptoms. A hard week tends to feel like a hard month when you look back. That is why doctors working with premenstrual disorders usually ask for symptoms rated every day, over at least two full cycles, before they talk about PMDD. A pattern only shows up when the days before your period sit next to the days after it.

What to log each day

• Mood: low, irritable, anxious, tearful, on edge.
• Energy and sleep: tired, slept badly, needed more sleep.
• Focus: harder to concentrate, slower to start things.
• Body: cramps, headache, bloating, sore breasts.
• Impact: did it get in the way of work, friends or home today?
• Your period: the day it starts and the day it ends.

The impact question matters more than people expect. Feeling irritable is common; feeling irritable enough that it changes your day is what a doctor will want to see.

How to read your own pattern

Line your check-ins up against your period. With PMS, symptoms often build in the week or two before a period and ease off within a few days of it starting. If your hard days cluster in the same stretch, cycle after cycle, that is a pattern worth showing someone. If they are spread evenly across the month, the cycle may not be the main driver, which is just as useful to know.

How Maeve does it

Maeve asks one short check-in a day: energy, social battery and how you feel, plus symptoms if you want to add them. After two or three cycles, Pattern builds a doctor report: your logged days counted back from each period, and how each feeling compared in the days before your period with the days after it. Your check-ins are end-to-end encrypted, so Maeve cannot read them.

Maeve is not a medical device and does not diagnose PMDD or any other condition. The report is there so you walk into an appointment with facts, not a fuzzy memory. If your mood gets very low, or you have thoughts of hurting yourself, please talk to a doctor or someone you trust now, not after the next cycle.