Keeping a fluid and symptom diary with advanced CKD

21 June 2026

As chronic kidney disease becomes more advanced, some people are asked by their team to keep a closer day-to-day diary. This post is about the practical side of that — getting a varied set of records down reliably, in one place — and nothing more. It does not define the CKD stages, does not say what you should track, and gives no advice. What to keep an eye on, and what any reading means, is for your own team to decide. Kidney Tracker simply holds the diary you choose to keep.

Why a diary across several measures gets unwieldy

A diary that spans fluid, a temperature here, a glucose reading there and the odd note quickly outgrows a single notebook. Different measures end up on different scraps, the day-to-day totalling becomes a chore, and it is easy to lose the thread of when something was recorded. The more a diary is asking of you, the more valuable it is to have it in one place that does the bookkeeping for you.

Fluid, with the totals done for you

Fluid is logged in millilitres, in and out, and the Today screen keeps a live running total of each with your net balance alongside — no end-of-day sums. You can save the amounts you use most so a familiar drink is a single tap, and a configurable day-start hour lets your daily totals line up with the 24-hour window your team uses rather than resetting at midnight. If you were given a daily figure, you enter it as your own target and the app totals against it; the number is yours, taken from your team's instructions.

Temperature, glucose and the wider picture

Alongside fluid you can record temperature and glucose readings when those are part of your diary, each saved with a time and shown on a chart, and you can keep weight and blood pressure here too. Everything sits together, so the diary is one record rather than several. The boundary is simple and firm: the app totals and charts what you enter and never judges any of it. It does not flag a temperature, comment on a glucose reading, or offer an opinion — that reading belongs with your team.

Light to keep, private, ready to share

So a closer diary stays manageable, you can add an entry hands-free with Siri, glance at recent figures on a home-screen widget or an Apple Watch complication, and look back over a day-by-day history whenever you want. Everything stays on your own iPhone — no account, nothing uploaded, and the developer never sees your data. When you want to talk it through, a printable report generated on your device pulls the diary together to share exactly where you choose.

The chronic kidney disease page covers day-to-day logging, and the fluid intake tracker page looks at fluid in particular. You may also like the posts on what people often track through the CKD stages and blood pressure and weight tracking with CKD.

Kidney Tracker is a personal record-keeping tool. It is not a medical device and does not provide medical advice — always follow your own clinical team.