What to look for
in a PMDD tracker

By Ben Jonas Goedeke · 2 min read · checked against its sources · updated 10 Oct 2026

A tracker for PMDD has one job: a daily record that a doctor can read. Before you choose one, check five things.

It asks every day, on the day

The assessment rests on notes written as you go, for at least two cycles. An app that only asks about your period, or lets you fill in last week from memory, will not give you that.

It records how strong, not only what

"Irritable" on a mild day and on a day you could not go to work are different. Look for a rating, and a way to say how much the day was disrupted. That is what the DRSP, the best-studied daily chart, asks for.

It lines your days up with your cycle

What matters is whether symptoms rise in the week before your period and ease after it starts. The app should show that comparison, not just a calendar of entries.

It is quick on the worst day

The hard week is when a long form gets skipped. The fewer taps on a bad day, the more complete two cycles will be.

You know where your entries go

Check whether it needs an account, whether entries are stored on the company's servers, and whether you can export everything as a file.

How Tideline does it

You write or say one sentence a day. Tideline picks out the symptoms and how strong they sounded on your phone, asks how much the day got in the way, and after two cycles puts the week before your period next to days 4 to 10. No account, nothing on our servers, export any time. It keeps a record; it does not diagnose.

Keep the record your doctor needs. Tideline is a period and mood tracker for iPhone: write one sentence a day, and after two cycles it puts the week before your period next to the week after it starts. Free to track, no account.
Get Tideline on the App Store

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Sources

© 2026 Ben Jonas Goedeke · Tideline keeps a record. It does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition.