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Could My Period Be Causing Flare-Ups? Learn How to Find Out

Katie Crino
Katie Crino, June Lawver · May 1, 2023
4 min read · Sources Verified
Updated: December 13, 2024

Recent women’s health research has made it clear that menstrual cycles influence our health far more than we previously thought. We’re all familiar with typical period symptoms, like cramping and mood swings, but for many people who menstruate, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For those with underlying health issues or chronic illnesses, irregular periods can be a part of everyday life. To get a full picture of your health, it's crucial for both patients and healthcare providers to understand the relationship between flare-ups, cycle irregularities, and menstrual phases.

Symptom flare-ups can occur before, during, and after your period. Learn how your cycle affects flare-ups.

Consider rheumatoid arthritis: you may notice increased joint pain at the beginning of your cycle. Likewise, if you have irritable bowel syndrome, you may experience noticeably worse symptoms during your period. These are just two examples–many chronic conditions are affected by menstrual cycles.

Endometriosis symptoms can flare during menstruation and around ovulation. Check out this article by Guava for tips on managing endometriosis flare-ups.

If you suffer from a chronic illness, it’s worth investigating whether your cycle could be behind your unexplained flare-ups. Recognizing your cycle as a trigger can help you predict and prepare for flare-ups in the future.

Cycle Tracking in Guava

Guava's cycle feature offers comprehensive menstrual tracking. You can monitor your cycle, receive fertility and menstruation predictions, see symptom patterns insights based on cycle phase, and learn about how your cyclical hormonal fluctuations affect your health.

Cycle tracking to predict fertility, ovulation, period, and symptoms in the Guava app
Cycle Tracking on the Today Page in Guava

How to Use Guava for Cycle and Symptom Tracking

1. Logging your Period and Symptoms

To see cycle insights and predictions for your period and ovulation windows in Guava, you'll first need to log your period and symptoms. At any point during your cycle, Guava allows you to log:

Tracking period symptoms, mood, and sexual activity in the Guava app
Tracking Flow, Discharge, Symptoms, Mood, and Sexual Activity in Guava

If you want to see how your period and cycle phases affect chronic illness symptoms, logging symptoms in Guava is crucial. You can log:

Symptom tracking can be crucial for those who experience PMDD. Learn more about the symptoms, causes, and diagnosis of premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

Logging this information makes it easy for you to pull up the onset data of symptoms or the date of your last menstrual cycle for doctor's appointments.

Period and cycle symptom tracking in the Guava app
Guava's Symptom-Tracking Feature for Menstrual and Non-Menstrual Symptoms

2. Cycle Predictions

Once you've logged your period, Guava can predict:

Knowing your fertility window and ovulation can help you if you are trying to conceive or avoid pregnancy. You can also log sexual activity to keep track of your chances of getting pregnant.

Pro-tip: If you’re using cycle tracking to predict your fertility, Guava’s guide on finding your fertility window is a great resource.

Period and fertility predictions in Guava
Guava's Period and Fertility Predictions

Guava can help you connect the dots between your cycle and condition flare-ups. These predictions can help you prepare for any painful or inconvenient symptoms you know may be coming.

3. Cycle Reminders

Once you have logged your period and can see a variety of cycle predictions, you can set up cycle reminders. Guava offers several options, including reminders for:

Using these reminders allows you to remember when important cycle events are happening without constantly referring back to the app.

Guava's cycle reminders
Guava's Cycle Reminders

4. Cycle Insights and Trends

After logging your symptoms and period for at least a few cycles, you’ll begin to see trends in your average period and cycle length over the past months.

Calculation of average cycle length in Guava
Average Period and Cycle Length Shown in Guava

Guava uses your cycle history to estimate your fertility window, ovulation date, and period length. By aligning these phases with the symptoms you log, you can visualize how symptoms vary over the course of the menstrual cycle. For instance, you might see that your bloating gets worse during your luteal phase, or that your fatigue peaks between your period and ovulation.

Variations in symptom flare-ups throughout the menstrual cycle
Cycle Symptom Patterns in Guava

Depending on what phase you’re in, you can select “Hormone levels” to see what to expect based on the hormonal fluctuations of your menstrual cycle.

Button to see hormonal variations and trends during a typical menstrual cycle
Typical hormonal fluctuations depending on cycle phase in Guava
Learn About Hormonal Variations Throughout Each Phase of Your Cycle

If you’re on the premium plan, Guava will proactively find the patterns in how your symptoms and other health metrics change throughout your cycle. That way, you can know what to expect during each phase, or even day of your cycle, whether that’s changes in sleep, energy mood, or flare-ups.

Variations in symptom flare-ups throughout the menstrual cycle
Cycle-Related Symptom Trends in Guava

Guava also pulls in the data you’ve logged to automatically find statistically significant correlations between certain aspects of your health, like energy, food, activity, blood pressure, and much more.

Guava's period insights

Without Premium, you can gain insights into different aspects of your health (including your period phases and symptoms) by manually entering the two data categories. With Insights, you can test whether your cycle phase affects the presence or severity of a symptom. You can also see if symptoms are related to period flow intensity or if a certain discharge color or consistency correlates with a symptom.

Learn more about Guava's Health Insights.

In Summary

Regardless of your cycle's patterns, you deserve to understand how it influences your symptoms and flare-ups. Guava enables you to track your cycle, fertility, and symptoms while providing insights and predictions to help you anticipate what's coming. This comprehensive view of your health empowers you to manage your condition more effectively and communicate clearly with healthcare providers, paving the way for improved outcomes.

Track My Cycle


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