I Tried A Period-Tracking App For 30 Days And Here's How It Went

Hello, all my period people. My name is Farrah and recently I made the decision to start tracking my period using an app called Clue.

I chose this app for two reasons. 1) It's free! You can pay to gain access to more features but I found the free version worked well for me. 2) A friend of mine sung praises of this particular app so I wanted to try it for myself. Let me walk you through how it works and tell you if it worked for me!

I've been on and off birth control for a decade. Now that I'm not on it, my cycles are pretty consistent. I struggle with painful periods and cramps that make me dizzy and nauseous. The pain levels were so extreme when I was younger than it was hard to do anything but lie down. My bleeding and pain are always the worst on the first day but they slowly ease as the week goes on. I can usually predict the week my period will arrive but not the exact day. In order to prepare for my periods, I used Clue for a little over 30 days to see how well it could track my cycle. I found it's really user-friendly and very simple to use.

(I know I'm going to get these comments so I might as well state that this isn't an ad. The app is free to use and I am a curious person who likes to pass information along!)

First, you can choose exactly what you want to track day to day. The most obvious are bleeding and pain levels. If you're not on your period, you just skip that part and move on to the next.

This is what it looks like when you track your day-to-day pain levels, hunger, exercise, emotions, etc. I love how it's color coordinated and easy to read.

Even though I've tracked every single day for over 30 days, it kept telling me my period was "expected tomorrow" for over a week. Which...wasn't very helpful. (As I write this portion, today is the 20th.)

I also wondered what the sun and clouds were supposed to represent. There was a short icon guide in the upper right corner that showed me. The sun is your "day of ovulation" and the clouds are "PMS."

There is also this very handy visual chart that shows you your most recent cycle and lets you know when your period is predicted to start.

My period started the 21st, despite the app predicting it would start as early as the 15th. This is what the cycle page looks like when you report that you've started. It also predicts how long your period will last.

When you click on analysis, it gives you information based on everything you've tracked. It's pretty handy. I think it will be helpful in the future, even though it didn't nail the exact day of my period. I'm going to keep tracking it to see if it will continue to get more and more accurate, and I think it will if I keep tracking every day. It's worth a shot, in my opinion!

If you're interested in giving Clue a shot, you can download the app here!