Author
Daniel Golaszewski
Founder of HAVYT
Daniel is the founder of HAVYT. He built the product partly from his own experience of living with ankylosing spondylitis: years of tracking pain, stiffness, sleep and training across apps that each held one piece and none of which spoke to each other.
He writes about tracking symptoms in a way that is useful between appointments, about training when the body does not follow a plan, and about building HAVYT. He is not a clinician, and nothing he writes is medical advice; the health guides cite the organisations and papers they draw on so a reader can check them.
Medical review. Guides on this site are not currently reviewed by a clinician. Each one cites the organisations and papers it draws on — the NHS, NICE, NASS, ASAS and peer-reviewed literature — so a reader can check the source directly. When a page has been reviewed by a qualified clinician, that will be stated on the page with their name, credentials and the date.
Guides
- What to track with ankylosing spondylitisNot everything is worth writing down. The handful of signals that make an AS record useful, and the level of detail that keeps you doing it.
- How to track ankylosing spondylitis symptoms between appointmentsReviews can be months apart. A routine for the time in between — what to record, when, and how to condense it before you walk in.
- Ankylosing spondylitis symptom diary: how to keep one that you will actually read backA symptom diary fails when it asks too much. The structure that keeps an AS diary short, and how to read it back months later.
- Ankylosing spondylitis flare tracker: recording flares so they mean something laterA flare is easier to describe while it is happening than to reconstruct afterwards. What to note, when, and how to look back at flares honestly.
- Morning stiffness tracker: how to measure it and why it matters in ASMorning stiffness is one of the defining features of inflammatory back pain, and two of the six BASDAI questions. How to measure it consistently.
- Understanding BASDAI: what the score measures, how it is calculated and how it is usedThe Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index explained: the six questions, the arithmetic, the thresholds used in guidance, and its limits.
- Exercise during an AS flare: adapting, not abandoningMovement is part of AS management, and a flare is when it is hardest. How people scale sessions, what the guidance says, and where the judgement stays clinical.
- Sleep and ankylosing spondylitis: what the research shows and what is worth trackingPoor sleep is one of the most common complaints in axSpA, and one of the most useful things to record next to stiffness and pain.
- Pain tracking for ankylosing spondylitis: separating spinal pain, joint pain and stiffnessOne pain number hides too much in AS. How to record spinal pain, peripheral joint pain and stiffness as separate signals, and why location matters.
- Axial spondyloarthritis vs ankylosing spondylitis: what the terms meanAS, axSpA, nr-axSpA, r-axSpA: the terminology explained plainly, and why the same person may see more than one of these names in their letters.
- How to keep a pain diary that is worth reading backA pain diary fails when it asks for too much or records only a number. The structure that keeps one short, honest and readable months later.
- How to track pain patterns — and what a pattern can and cannot tell youPatterns are why people keep records, and where records most often mislead. How to look for them honestly and what to do with one when you find it.
- Sleep and chronic pain: what the evidence says and what to recordPoor sleep and pain feed each other. The research in brief, and the few sleep signals worth recording beside pain.
- Exercise and chronic pain: what the evidence supports and how to track itThe evidence for exercise in chronic pain is encouraging and modest. What it does and does not say, and how to record training so you can see it against your own pain.
- Medication tracking for chronic conditions: what to record and why timing mattersA medication record is most useful when it sits next to the symptom record. What to note, what to leave out, and the one thing not to do with it.
- How to prepare for a rheumatology appointment with AS: what to bring and what to askAppointments are short and infrequent. What information to bring, how to condense months into a page, and the questions worth asking.
Articles
- HAVYT 1.1 is here: a smarter Emelie, a better Daily Check-in and Community VotingHAVYT 1.1 is about making the app more useful day to day: a Daily Check-in you can finish in a minute, an Emelie that actually understands your HAVYT data, better conversations on bad days, and a vote on what we build next.
- HAVYT Is Live: Training, Recovery and Symptoms in One AppAfter months of building, testing, breaking things and rebuilding them, HAVYT is finally available. Here is what it does, why it exists, and what comes next.
About HAVYT
HAVYT is an iPhone app for tracking symptoms, chronic pain, sleep, recovery, nutrition and training in one place, with AS Mode for ankylosing spondylitis. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition. Read the story.