Methods of operating a haptic actuator to apply physical and/or thermal sensations to a user to provide subjective symptom relief to a user are described. In some embodiments, a haptic actuator may be automatically activated when one or more detected user states are compared to one or more predetermined activation parameters to determine the user is experiencing an episode related to a condition of the user. In another embodiment, one or more operating parameters of a haptic actuator may be updated if the haptic actuator did not provided a desired amount of subjective symptom relief to a user during use. In yet another embodiment, a haptic actuator may create an event log based on activation events when the haptic actuator is used to provide symptom relief for a condition of the user.