Allergy Diary — Record Reactions, Recall Exposures, See What Recurs
👥 Who is this for?
For anyone with reactions that keep coming back and no clear cause yet:
- People with recurring skin reactions — hives, rash, itching or swelling that appears every few days or weeks
- People with recurring gut symptoms — bloating, stomach pain, nausea or diarrhoea after some meals but not others
- People with suspected food intolerance — lactose, gluten, histamine and similar, where the reaction comes hours after eating
- Parents keeping a record for a child before a doctor's appointment
- Anyone preparing for an allergy consultation who wants dated records rather than a vague account from memory
- People doing an elimination diet who need to log what happened and when
Note on the name: much of what a food diary surfaces is medically an intolerance rather than an allergy. This tool records either. It does not tell them apart — only a doctor can.
📋 How to use it
- Say when the reaction started:
Just now, earlier today, yesterday, or any date and time. Logging afterwards from memory is the normal way to use this — you do not need to open the app while a reaction is happening.
- Record what happened:
Pick symptoms, then how bad it got at its worst. Body areas, duration and a note are optional.
- Walk back through the hours before it:
The diary lays out the time before your reaction in bands — morning, midday, afternoon, evening, night — and works backwards from the moment it started. Add what you had in each band. Search finds foods by name, by a regional name, or by group, so typing "milk" finds cheese, yogurt and paneer. Leave gaps where you cannot remember; blanks count as unknown, never as "did not eat".
- Add anything unusual:
New soap, detergent, cosmetics, medicine, pollen, dust, alcohol, exercise, poor sleep or stress. These are recorded alongside food and counted the same way.
- Read back what recurs:
After three recorded reactions you can see what appears most often — both as individual items and as groups like dairy or gluten. It counts; you and your doctor draw the conclusion.
✨ Key features
🆓 Free PlanAllergy Diary is available on the free plan. Some features, like cloud save and sync, need an account.
🔒 Private by defaultHealth records stay in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose to sign in and back up.
🕒 Works backwards from the reactionYou set the time it started and the diary lays out the hours before it. Retrospective logging is the normal path, not a workaround.
🍽️ A global food listOver 200 foods and dishes across European, Indian, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Asian and African cooking — plus your own additions.
🏷️ Thinks in groupsEvery food is tagged with the allergen and intolerance groups it touches, so a dairy pattern shows up even when you never ate the same dish twice.
🧴 More than foodSoaps, detergents, cosmetics, medicines, pollen, dust, alcohol, exercise, sleep and stress are all recorded the same way.
📖 Readable as a diaryYour episodes stay legible and printable at any time — useful to take to an appointment.
📶 Works offlineInstall it or just use it. After the first load it works without a connection.
💼 Common uses
- Unexplained hives: log every outbreak and see which foods or products keep appearing in the hours before
- Delayed gut reactions: intolerance symptoms often arrive 2–24 hours after eating, which is exactly the window this diary covers
- Before a doctor's appointment: arrive with dated records instead of trying to remember
- Narrowing down a dish: record a dish as one item, then break out its varying parts when you need to be more specific
- Child's reaction diary: a parent's record of what a child ate and how they reacted
- Elimination diet support: keep the evidence while you reintroduce foods one at a time
⚠️ What this tool does not do
- It does not diagnose, and it never says a food caused your reaction. Something appearing often in your records does not mean it caused anything.
- It does not tell you what is safe to eat, and it never rules a food out.
- It is not a medical device and does not replace testing or medical advice.
- If a reaction involves difficulty breathing or swelling of the face or throat, seek medical care immediately.
Also searched as: food diary app, allergy journal, symptom tracker, food intolerance diary, elimination diet tracker, hives diary, histamine intolerance log, food sensitivity tracker, reaction log, free allergy tracker.
