Build a PMDD Diagnostic Tracking App

1. 1

   Build on the clinical standard, with clinicians

   Model the daily ratings on the established instruments used in PMDD evaluation (daily severity ratings of the recognized symptom clusters, tracked prospectively against cycle phase), with a reproductive psychiatrist or informed clinician advising. The app supports evaluation and never diagnoses: the output is a structured record for a clinician, and the app says exactly that, consistently.

2. 2

   Design for the bad days it exists to capture

   The protocol fails when the worst days go unlogged, so logging must survive them: a ten-second check-in, gentle streak-free reminders, and a rage-day mode that accepts three taps and a note. Compassionate UX is not decoration here; it is protocol adherence, which is the product's entire clinical value.

3. 3

   Make the two-cycle report the hero artifact

   After two tracked cycles, generate the report a clinician can read in ninety seconds: symptom severity charted against cycle phase, the luteal-phase pattern visible or not visible, functional impact notes, and the tracking methodology stated. Patients describe walking in with this report as the first appointment where they were believed; that story is the product.

4. 4

   Handle safety with complete seriousness

   PMDD carries elevated suicidality risk in its worst phases. Build crisis resources into the app's fabric (visible, localized, never buried), screen-in language reviewed by clinicians, and escalation prompts when logged severity crosses thresholds. This is non-negotiable infrastructure, and building it well is part of why the community will trust you.

5. 5

   Price gently, protect the data fiercely

   A modest subscription after a free first cycle, hardship access granted quietly, and privacy architecture worthy of intimate health data: encryption, no data sales ever, export and delete controls. Reproductive health data deserves paranoid handling, and this audience rightly checks.

6. 6

   Grow through the community that already organizes

   The PMDD community is unusually organized (nonprofits, awareness months, active peer forums) and desperately recommends tools that work. Partner with the patient organizations, publish plain-language education on the diagnostic protocol, and let clinician offices distribute the app to patients they want tracking before the next appointment.

Do not take our word for the money. Put your own numbers in and see what this idea has to earn before it works. Free, instant, no account needed.