Know what inflames you
Your flare didn't start today.
Day 847 of asking "is it worse today?" Eczema, psoriasis and IBS flares rarely arrive when the trigger does. Unflame explains the lag, the mechanisms, and what the research can actually tell you, with every number traced to its source.
Built from structured evidence dossiers: primary studies, claim tables, logged contradictions. Nothing here recommends a supplement, a product or a diet.
How long is the lag?
IBS
Cramping 5 minutes into a meal
The food you just ate is still in your stomach. Stretching the stomach fires the gastrocolonic reflex within 60 to 90 seconds, and in IBS the colon's response is felt as pain. The meal itself needs 2 to 5 hours to reach the colon.
Why IBS hits minutes after a mealThree things the research says
of real-life meals logged by people with IBS produced no symptoms, even though 84% report food triggers. Why the same food hurts on some days
of returning psoriasis plaque area fell inside old plaque borders in the only body-mapping study. Not the 90% often quoted. Skin memory, explained
when pure sweat was induced on eczema skin without heat or exercise. The itch comes from the bundle around sweat, not the fluid. The sweat paradox
By condition
Start with what flares for you
The library
Ten pattern stories, one standard
Each explainer answers one question people actually ask, says plainly what is known, what is extrapolated and what is unknown, and lists every source.
Why psoriasis comes back in the same spot
Read the explainer IBSWhy IBS hits minutes after a meal, when the food is still in your stomach
Read the explainer TrackingWhat a symptom log can tell you, and what it cannot
Read the explainer IBSWhy a stomach bug can leave a years-long footprint in the gut
Read the explainer EczemaDoes bad air make eczema flare? What the AQI can and cannot tell you
Read the explainer Eczema · PsoriasisThe gut-skin axis is real. 'Your skin disease starts in your gut' is not what it shows.
Read the explainer PsoriasisWhy a scratch can turn into a psoriasis plaque, and why most scratches don't
Read the explainer IBSWhy the same food can hurt on Tuesday and not on Friday
Read the explainer EczemaWhy a workout makes eczema itch, and why the sweat itself is not the villain
Read the explainer EczemaHard water and eczema: what happened when 336 families got water softeners
Read the explainerThe Unflame app, honestly described
An engine that looks backward through your own data
Most apps score today against a population norm. Unflame learns what is normal for you, then asks which of your own signals were unusual one, two or three days before the days you flared. A signal only counts once that pattern has repeated.
Your baseline, not the textbook's
Heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep, temperature and breathing rate from your watch, plus what you log: meals, water, stress, flare days. Each is compared with your own rolling average over the past weeks, never with a population number.
Lag analysis at 24, 48 and 72 hours
For every signal and every lag window the engine counts how often an unusual day was followed by a flare, and how often it was not. Eight high-sugar days with six flares two days later is a pattern; two flares at random lags is noise.
Signals have to earn their place
Each signal sits in one of three states: Observational (watched, not scored), Activated (repeated evidence, contributes to the score) or Reduced confidence (used to be reliable, recent data mixed). Promotion and demotion take sustained evidence, not one odd day.
A Pattern Score, with its confidence attached
Each morning: a Pattern Score from 0 to 100, higher meaning today looks less like your own past pre-flare days, shown next to a separate Confidence Score that says how much data and history that number rests on. Early on it will say "low confidence" out loud.
Two things in the works
Get the Flare Pattern Handbook and early access to the Unflame app
A free, source-cited handbook built from these explainers, and a place on the list for the Unflame iPhone app (Apple Watch optional). We will email you when either is ready, and when a new explainer is published. No supplements, no products, unsubscribe any time.
Common questions
Before you read on
Does Unflame sell supplements or recommend diets?
No. Nothing on this site recommends a supplement, a product, a diet or an elimination protocol. Where the research tests a specific intervention (a probiotic strain, a water softener), we report the trial result and its limits.
Can Unflame tell me what my trigger is?
It can tell you which signals in your own data have repeatedly been unusual 24 to 72 hours before your flares, how often, and how confident it is in each one. That is correlation in one person. It cannot rule out confounding, expectation or reverse causation, so it is presented as a specific hypothesis to test with a clinician, not a verdict. How the engine decides what counts.
Where does the information come from?
Each explainer is built from a structured dossier: primary human studies retrieved and read, claims tabulated with their source and limitations, contradictions logged, and approved wording checked against what the evidence can bear. Sources are listed at the end of every page with links.
Is this medical advice?
No. Unflame is health education and a self-observation tool. It does not diagnose or treat. Every explainer includes the warning signs that need a clinician, and decisions about treatment belong with a doctor who has examined you.