Symptoms of myasthenia gravis (MG) are different for everybody, and they’re triggered by different things. But doctors don’t always know what makes your symptoms get worse.
That’s why tracking your symptoms is an important part of managing your care, especially when you start a new treatment or have a major life change. The key is to be honest about what you’re experiencing and how your symptoms affect your daily life.
Why You Should Track Your MG Symptoms
Tracking and recording your symptoms helps your doctor give you the best treatment options. It also empowers you to advocate for your own care by knowing what causes your MG flare-ups.
Helps you know your triggers
MG symptoms usually get worse — or flare — and cause your muscles to weaken. Symptoms can include:
- Double vision
- Slurred speech
- Increased arm weakness
- Unsteady walking
- Difficulty swallowing
Flare-ups may be triggered by:
- Stress
- Fatigue
- Infections
- Hormonal changes
- Extreme temperatures
- Certain medications
Helps you prevent emergencies
Tracking your symptoms provides a baseline for what’s normal for you and what’s not. This may help prevent emergencies such as a myasthenic crisis. That’s when you have symptoms of severe respiratory muscle weakness. Myasthenic crises can happen over a period of days or weeks. If you notice more muscle weakness than usual, call your doctor right away.
Why Tracking Your Symptoms May Improve Your Quality of Life
There’s no cure for MG, and most people with the condition just want to get muscle function back. MG is a chronic disease, meaning your symptoms come and go. That can take a toll on your quality of life.
A 2023 study published in the journal Neurology and Therapy suggests the extent at which symptoms vary causes the most emotional, social, and economic burden for those living with MG.
It’s impossible to remember every symptom you experience day to day. But the same study suggests your doctor needs to include how your symptoms impact your daily life when they consider your treatment options.
How to Track Your MG Symptoms
There are several ways you can track your MG symptoms, including:
MG-ADL scale
The Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living scale (MG-ADL) is a questionnaire that measures and tracks your symptoms based on how severe they are and how much they’re affecting your daily life. It asks about:
- Talking
- Swallowing
- Chewing
- Breathing
- Brushing your hair
- Getting up from a chair
- Double vision
- Eyelid droop
You give each one a score of 0 to 3 based on how severe your symptoms are, with 3 being the most severe. Typically, the higher your total score, the more your symptoms interfere with your daily living and functioning. If your score is 0 or 1, you have what’s called minimal symptom expression (MSE), which means you have no symptoms of MG.
Once you have your score, your doctor may ask you to repeat the scale later to see if it changes. That’ll help them determine how well your treatments are working. If your score goes down by even 2 points, your doctor can consider your treatments successful.
Myasthenia Gravis Quality of Life scale
The MG-QOL15r scale has 15 questions focusing more on how your symptoms are affecting your general happiness and overall emotional health. Some sample questions include:
- I am frustrated by my MG.
- I have trouble with my eyes because of my MG (e.g. double vision).
- I have trouble eating because of MG.
- I have limited my social activity because of my MG.
For each one, you score yourself:
- 0: Not at all
- 1: Somewhat
- 2: Very much
Your score ranges from 0 to 30, and the higher your score means the lower your quality of life. Because living with MG can be hard, knowing how much of a toll it’s having on your quality of life can help you and your doctor create a care plan specifically to help alleviate the symptoms that are keeping you from doing what you want to do most.
Keep a daily symptom journal
Keeping a daily journal of your symptoms also can give you and your doctor a glimpse into how your symptoms fluctuate. Keep it simple and be consistent. When you visit your doctor, you can give them a summary of any patterns you see or major changes that you noticed.
Here’s what you can include:
- Date and time your symptoms flared
- How severe it was
- Note how much sleep you had (were you tired?)
- Note the temperature
- Any triggers
- If your medication helped (or didn’t)
- Other treatments you tried
Use your smartphone
Your smartphone can come in handy when you’re in the middle of an MG flare-up. Use it to take a selfie or video so you have a visual of your symptoms and how they affect you. You can show the pictures to your doctor. Photos are particularly good for symptoms that are hard to describe, like trouble chewing or swallowing.
You also can use your phone to text yourself when you’re experiencing symptoms. The texts create a time-stamped log that you and your care team can refer back to. Your doctor might be able to identify patterns or triggers and adjust your treatments.
Apps for tracking
There are several smartphone apps that are available for download that can help you track your symptoms and manage your treatment, including:
MyMG. This app from the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America lets you track your symptoms and gives other resources, like MGFA research information, blog posts, MG assistance, and news.
Improve MG lets you record your symptoms with audio and video, and email them to your health care team. It also has information on current and new treatments plus an FAQ section.
myMGverse has medication reminders, symptom trackers, and lots of information about MG. It also has the option for you to share your symptom tracker with your care team.
Bearable and SelfInsight are both apps designed to track symptoms of autoimmune diseases like MG.
New Technology for Tracking
Because tracking MG symptoms is a critical part of treatment, new wearable and machine learning technology is being developed to make tracking easier and more effective.
For instance, BioSensics is creating several different digital monitoring systems, including wearable monitors for symptom tracking. Its BioDigit Speech software automatically collects and analyzes your speech patterns. BioDigit Video uses machine learning to detect and assess your movements.
PeopleCare.ai is a platform that uses AI to generate reports from information you input as well as from your electronic medical records.
Other AI tools are being developed using facial expression recognition software to determine how severe your symptoms are.
Show Sources
Photo Credit: iStock/Getty Images
SOURCES:
Muscle and Nerve: “Utilization of MG‐ADL in myasthenia gravis clinical research and care.”
Neurology and Therapy: “Understanding the Symptom Burden and Impact of Myasthenia Gravis from the Patient’s Perspective: A Qualitative Study.”
StatPearls: “Myasthenia Gravis.”
Rare Disease Network: “MYASTHENIA GRAVIS QUALITY OF LIFE-15 REVISED.”
American Academy of Family Physicians: “The Use of Symptom Diaries in Outpatient Care.”
Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America: “MG Emergencies,” “MyMG Mobile App.”
MGteam: “Goals in Myasthenia Gravis Treatment: What Is Minimal Symptom Expression?,” “Your MG Symptoms Guide: Talking, Chewing, Swallowing.”
Conquer Myasthenia Gravis: “MG Activities of Daily Living (MG-ADL) Scale.”
Cleveland Clinic: “Myasthenia Gravis: What It Is, Causes, Symptoms & Treatment,” “Myasthenia Gravis Outcomes.”
Johns Hopkins Medicine: “Myasthenia Gravis.”
MDA Clinical & Scientific Conference 2025: “Looking into the Future of Myasthenia Gravis Management Using Artificial Intelligence.”
Peoplecare.AI: “Features.”
BioSensics: “BioDigit Video,” “BioDigit Speech,” “PAMSys.”
