How to keep track of your medications, diagnoses, and appointments

When you’re only managing one condition, keeping track is easy enough. When you’re juggling several - multiple medications, a few specialists, appointments that never seem to stop - it becomes a job in itself. And it’s a job that lands on you, usually at the exact time you have the least energy for it.

Here’s a realistic system for staying on top of it, built from actually living it rather than from a wellness blog.

Start with a single source of truth

The biggest problem isn’t that the information doesn’t exist - it’s that it’s scattered. A dose written on a pharmacy label, a diagnosis in a letter, an appointment in a text message, a test result in a portal you can’t remember the login for.

Pick one place to hold it all. It doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s the one place you always go. A notebook works. A spreadsheet works. An app works. What doesn’t work is having it spread across six different places, because that’s the same as not having it at all.

Track your medications properly

For each medication, keep:

• The name (and note if it’s a brand or generic - they get swapped).
• The dose and how often you take it.
• What it’s for, in your own words.
• When you started it, and if you stop, why.
• Any side effects you’ve noticed.

That last one matters more than people realise. When a doctor asks “how did you go on that one?”, a quick note from three months ago beats trying to remember.

Keep a running list of your diagnoses

Write your diagnoses down in plain language, roughly in order of how much they affect your daily life. This becomes the summary you reach for every time a new clinician asks you to “start from the beginning.” You’ll use it constantly.

Get your appointments out of your head

Every appointment should live in one calendar, with the specialist’s name, what it’s for, and any prep you need to do beforehand (fasting, stopping a medication, bringing a scan). After each one, jot down what was decided and what happens next - that’s the thread that connects one appointment to the next.

Log the changes, not just the facts

Static facts are useful, but health is about change. A short log - “started new med on the 3rd,” “pain worse this week,” “blood test on Friday” - turns scattered moments into a story you can actually hand to a doctor.

Make it something you’ll actually keep up

The best system is the one you’ll still be using in six months. If it’s too fiddly, you’ll stop, and a half-updated record is almost worse than none.

This is exactly why I built Relentless - a private space designed to hold your medications, diagnoses, and appointments in one place, without the friction of a spreadsheet you have to babysit. However you choose to do it, the principle is the same: one place, kept current, that belongs to you.