Why I Built Flarely

The problem nobody talks about at dinner

I’ve lived with ulcerative colitis since 2019. If you’re reading this, I probably don’t need to explain what that means: unpredictable stretches, urgent bathroom trips, fatigue that feels like someone pulled the plug on your battery, and a constant, low-level worry about what your body is going to do next.

The physical part is hard enough. What really wore me down was the guessing.

Every rough stretch sent me through the same mental checklist. Was it the pizza last night? The stress from that deadline? Did I sleep badly? Was it the coffee, or the milk in the coffee? I’d replay the last two days like a detective reviewing blurry footage. One week dairy seemed like the obvious answer. The next week I’d eat cheese and feel fine. I started to wonder if I was seeing patterns that weren’t there.

I tried writing things down. A notebook lasted about nine days before I left it at home and never picked it up again. A spreadsheet lasted longer but was about as pleasant as doing taxes. I’d sit down at night and try to remember lunch, and the details were already gone. Making sense of any of it was another job entirely. I wasn’t a data scientist. I was just tired, staring at rows and columns that told me nothing.

The worst part was being asked how things had been. I’d say “maybe dairy? Sometimes spicy food?” and it felt like telling a mechanic “the car makes a noise… sometimes.” I wanted to give my care team more to work with, and I wanted to understand my own days better. I just didn’t have a good way to capture them.

The moment it clicked

I remember the meal. I was at a restaurant, looking at a dish I’d never ordered before, doing the silent math everyone with IBD knows: what’s in this, is there hidden dairy, how will I feel later? And I thought: my phone can name a song from a few seconds of audio and translate a street sign from a photo. Why can’t it look at this plate and help me write down what I’m eating?

I went looking for apps. There were calorie counters that didn’t care about my gut, and symptom loggers that felt like medical forms: fifteen fields, three dropdowns, and no motivation left to do it again tomorrow. Nothing made it quick to write down my days and then actually see them.

So I built it.

What Flarely does

Flarely is the app I wished I’d had. In plain terms:

A 14-day plan. You pick two things to keep an eye on, like dairy and urgency, or stress and urgency. You log a little each day. On day 7 you get a first look, and on day 13 your own summary: what you remembered next to what you actually logged. Then you add your own takeaways and decide what’s next.

Logging that takes seconds. If tracking takes more than a minute, I stop by week two, so a BM is three taps: blood, urgency and pain, with stool type and mucus if you want them. Stress is one tap.

Meal photos. Snap your plate and Flarely lists the foods it sees, adds tags like dairy, gluten or high fat, and estimates the FODMAP level. You can change anything. It isn’t perfect, but it beats trying to remember lunch at 10 p.m.

Your days side by side. The Summary tab has a calendar of BMs with blood and urgency marked, and charts over 7, 30 or 90 days. Ask for an AI recap and it describes what you logged in plain words. It doesn’t tell you what caused what, and it never gives advice. What you notice is yours.

A 30-day summary to share. A PDF of your BMs, blood and urgency, meals and stress that you can share with your care team, family, or anyone you trust.

Your logs stay on your phone. This was non-negotiable for me. Flarely stores your logs on your iPhone, not on our servers. Nothing goes to AI unless you ask: a meal photo, or a recap. Those go to OpenAI through our server, which doesn’t keep them. I didn’t want to build a company that makes money from people’s health data. No ads, and no data selling.

Who it’s for

Anyone with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis who is tired of guessing. If you’ve ever looked at a plate of food with a knot in your stomach, or been asked “how have things been?” and not known what to say, or given up on tracking because it was too much work, I built this so you wouldn’t have to give up again.

It’s also for people who are newly diagnosed. I remember that time well: the flood of information, the conflicting advice, the fear. Flarely won’t fix any of that, but it gives you one small thing you can do each day to understand your days a little better, and feel a bit more in charge of them.

Try it

Flarely is on the App Store for iPhone. It’s free to download; the yearly plan is $39.99 and starts with a 14-day free trial, or it’s $4.99 a month.

If something’s missing or broken, write to [email protected]. I read every message.

I built Flarely because I needed it. I hope it helps you too.

— Flarely’s founder

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Flarely is for your own wellbeing. It isn’t medical advice and doesn’t diagnose or treat anything. For medical questions, talk with your care team.