Endo app

I’m writing this blog post retroactively. It’s currently September 23 but I’m posting this for the 9th because I felt it was somewhat important for me to keep track of why I’m doing what I'm doing at the moment.

So I had this idea of building an app for endometriosis patients because my girlfriend has it and we felt she didn’t track enough what food and activities were triggering her flares.

If you don’t know what endometriosis is, it’s a terrible disease that cripples 1 in 10 women during their monthly menstruations. It’s akin to cancer and a condition enabled by hyper production of oestrogen in some women. In excess oestrogen, in turn, creates endometrioma, a cyst, on the outside of the uterus. This becomes extremely painful during inflammatory crises, like monthly periods.

So far, there’s no known medical treatment for curing endometriosis. The disease affects approximately 200 million women all around the world, and it takes on average 7 years before receiving a full diagnosis.

Most women with endometriosis report pains akin to “burning” or “stabbing” and usually can’t do anything during their flare-ups.

Yep, that’s terrible and not a lot of people are aware of this disease. A lot of doctors too are out of the loop (hence the long and difficult diagnosis process – a lot of doctors are clueless and dismissive of the women’s pain).

Living with my girlfriend who has endometriosis and having observed how her life is living with this disease, I always felt like I wanted to do something to help.

So after selling my AI study app, I sat down and brainstormed a few ideas, amongst which, one to build a daily tracker for women with endometriosis.

The biggest reason is that a lot of women with endo keep a daily journal where they track their symptoms. My girlfriend didn’t because she’s a few years into her “end journey” but I came to understand it was especially important for women who were still going through their diagnosis stage or were just recently diagnosed and or were learning to live with their disease.

Detecting triggers makes the difference between a month where the pain will be bearable or another one where life will just be a living hell. Endo crises can last up to weeks.

So it’s crucial for women to track their daily habits.

We’ll see where it leads.