The Easiest Symptom Tracker Is Now Live!

My Symptom Tracker app for iOS is now live! It's the easiest way to track your health-related symptoms and share it with your health team!

Why track your symptoms? Well, have you ever visited a doctor and they asked: “How often have you been having this symptom or that? How bad has it been? Is there anything that makes it better or worse?”

If you’re like most people, it’s really difficult to remember all of this and especially so when you’re not feeling well. But without accurate information, it’s harder for your doctor to make a good diagnosis and propose the right treatment.

That’s why you need My Symptom Tracker! With this app, you can:Easily keep track of any and all symptoms you experience! (You can even log symptoms that happened in the past!)

Log all the essential information about your symptom including the specific body part, intensity, date and time of day!Share your symptom list with your doctor, family or friends via email or text!


My Symptom Tracker was created by an expert patient advocate with over 20 years of experience. We know that the key to any tracking system’s success is to make it very, very easy to use. 


We also understand that sharing information about your health is essential to receiving effective healthcare. That’s why we’re committed to making this happen and help you become a better-informed, patient…with My Symptom Tracker!

Buy on iTunes!

The Costs of Not Going to the Gym ($500 Billion)

Most of us know that we should be eating healthier and exercising more.  It's not a complicated formula.  And yet, the statistics on preventable illnesses are staggering.  Here's just a small sampling:

• Nearly 10% of the US population has diabetes (~30million)
• Approximately 1.4 million new cases of diabetes reported annually
• 30% of all Americans are obese
• Obesity related illnesses account for ~$200b per year in health costs
• 17% of all Americans over 18 are tobacco smokers
• Another 16 million Americans live with a smoker.
• Smoking causes $300b a year in health costs and lost productivity
• Cigarette smoking is responsible for 480,000 deaths per year and is the leading source of preventable deaths

(sources:  American Diabetes Association and CDC) 

The statistics on exercising are not very good either:

• 191 million Americans (60%) don't get the recommended amount of weekly exercise
• 25% don't exercise at all (79 million people)
• # of gyms in the U.S.:  30,500
• # of Americans with gym memberships:  58million
• % that don't use their memberships:  67%

(sources:  CDC and StatisticBrain) 

The average cost of a gym membership is about $60 per month.  That's $720 per year.  Many diabetes medicines cost far more than this.

So let's generously assume that there are ~85million people in the U.S. (27%) with a preventable illness.  If the government spent $720 per person on a gym membership for each of them, the cost would be $61billion per year.  

So the big question is:  could this $61b reduce health care spending by more than that amount?  If ~$500b is being spent on preventable illnesses, that means that it would have to result in 12.2% savings.

I haven't found any conclusive studies one way or the other.  But, personally speaking, I prefer the idea of spending $61b on gym memberships as opposed to the same amount on diabetes medicine.  

Of course, the big problem is how to encourage (or require) that people use their gym memberships?  Any solution would certainly be very controversial (just ask any ACA opponent about the mandate).