From nurse to patient, and the idea behind Tiller
I spent 16 years as a registered nurse helping people make sense of their health.
When sudden numbness on my right side led to an MS diagnosis in 2022, I found myself on the other side of care. My nursing experience helped me understand the words, but it couldn’t prepare me for the shock, or stop me from going blank during a 15-minute specialist appointment and leaving with questions unanswered.
As a nurse, I knew how much context matters. As a patient, I saw how hard it is to keep symptoms, routines, test results, and questions organized across everyday life and short appointments.
Mark and I created Tiller to help people bring the health information they choose to track into one place, use it in everyday coaching, and prepare for conversations with clinicians. My own questions about perimenopause are part of my story; they don’t establish a connection between perimenopause and MS.
Tiller’s coach does not diagnose or give medical advice. We want people to feel more prepared and less alone managing their health information.
Nikki Lyons, Co-founder
Organize, reflect, prepare.
Tiller is a broader personal health system, shaped by a founder’s experience. It keeps the health context you choose to record in one place, uses it in coaching and everyday routines, lets you review it over time, and helps you prepare for conversations with clinicians.
It supports organization, reflection and preparation. It does not diagnose, treat, or replace medical care.
Fifteen minutes with your doctor, used well.
In a short appointment, knowing your own history and asking the right questions matters most. So Tiller writes them, from your own records, ready to print, email or hand across the desk.
- Built from your daily check-ins and symptom score
- Edit what goes in before you share it
- Keeps working in the weeks between appointments
Three ideas underneath it.
The whole person
Medical history, symptoms, hormones, food, movement, sleep and the load of everyday life, read together. A plan only makes sense if it understands the life you’re asking it to fit into.
Load, not just calories
A hard week at work, four hours of sleep, a long flight and a heavy squat session are all load. Tiller asks one question: how much can you take on today?
Honest about the evidence
Research made understandable, with a clear line between what’s established, what’s still emerging and what nobody knows yet. Tiller coaches. It doesn’t diagnose.
Why Tiller.
In a garden, tilling tends and prepares the soil for growth. On a boat, the tiller is how you steer.
That’s the idea: steady tending, and finding your own direction in your health. Tiller doesn’t control your health or promise an outcome. The direction stays yours.
Orange is the colour of MS awareness. The butterfly was drawn by our daughter.
Nikki and Mark.
Registered nurse for 16 years. Diagnosed with MS in 2022. Her lived experience is where Tiller began.
More than twenty years in technology. He turned Nikki’s idea into the app.
Start with ten days free.
The full app from day one, long enough for a week of logs and your first insights report. No charge for ten days, then the plan you choose. Cancel anytime in Settings.
Every part of the app is included: training, food, sleep, mood, labs, the coach and the weekly report. Works in your phone’s browser and installs to your home screen.