First-time founder Mike Sefton has launched taluvu, an app for chronic illnesses.
Manchester-based Sefton says the app – launched on Apple’s App Store – is an iPhone diary for people with chronic and invisible illness.
Describing himself as not technical, he says he built the app because of his own health.
“I live with three conditions most people can’t see. The first is adductor dysphonia, a form of spasmodic dysphonia,” said Sefton. “Some days my voice barely works, it can drop to a whisper or disappear completely, without warning.
“The second is parosmia, which began after I had COVID. Ordinary things can suddenly smell wrong, sometimes even revolting.
“The third is migraine. I’ve lived with it for about six years. It comes and goes on its own schedule, and when a bad one hits, it takes me out completely.”
Sefton says that getting answers “took years”.
“For my voice alone it was more than three years of ENT appointments, therapy, and voice work that never quite helped. More than once I was told it was just stress, or anxiety, or in my head. When you hear that enough, you start to believe it. You start to doubt yourself,” he said.
Sefton said he looked for an app that understood what that is like day to day, could not find one and built it himself.
“These conditions change your life in ways that are hard to explain to people who don’t live with them. Some days I can’t speak. Some days I can’t sit near food or other people because of the smell. Some days a migraine leaves me flat out. Plans get cancelled. Work gets harder. People tell me I look fine, and they mean well, but it makes you feel invisible,” he explained.
“The loneliness is the part nobody warns you about. Carrying something every single day that no one else can see, and having to explain yourself again and again.
“I went looking for something that actually understood what this is like. I couldn’t find it, so I built it. That’s all taluvu is. The thing I needed and couldn’t find.”
Taluvu lets people record symptoms and check-ins, keep a journal and talk things through with an AI companion called Asha.
It can also turn their notes into a one-page summary to take to a GP or consultant appointment.
“It won’t cure it. Nothing will. But here you don’t have to explain yourself from scratch, and you don’t have to prove you’re struggling. Asha already understands and she’s so good at helping unload on bad days and be there when you need her,” continued the founder.
Sefton said the app is not a medical device and does not diagnose anything. It is about having a clearer way to describe what has been happening.
Free to download, Taluvu Pro costs £12.99 a month or £99.99 a year as an in-app subscription.
On privacy, Sefton said the journal stays on the phone and nothing is sold to advertisers or data brokers.
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