Helpful Apps For Tracking & Organization
My Fitness Pal (free) - Keeping track of what you eat can be helpful for a lot of reasons. You can pick up on food allergies & intolerances by looking back on what you ate when symptoms started. You can also pick up on food triggers that just flares things up. I can hardly remember what I ate a day ago, let alone 2 or 3 days ago so this app comes in handy big time. In my case I also need to count my calories (to gain weight), and it's easier to hold myself accountable with this app. I have a goal set for my daily calories and I try to pick what foods I eat based on that. I started to accurately count my calories and pick and choose foods based on what I needed nutritionally. It also helped me find patterns in foods/symptoms on many occasions, so this is my #1 cant live without app. (You can also track water consumption and exercise & it syncs up with most smart watches if that's something you need).
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MediSafe (free) - This app helps you remember to take your medicine and offers many different alarms and notifications to help keep you accountable. So many times I thought, "Oh I need to take my meds," and then within 5 seconds I somehow got distracted and next thing I knew it was 10 PM and I missed a dose of something. Having an app which notifies you is incredibly helpful, but what makes this app even greater is that friends & family can download it and connect with you. In my case my mom also has the app on her phone and if I still somehow miss my dose it notifies her and she then texts or calls me. She can also see what medications I took or skipped and help me out as needed. MediSafe also lets you log upcoming Doctor's appointments which it reminds you to prepare for, and it makes for a handy "medicine list" that so many Doctor's offices request (but is usually the most daunting task ever).
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Instant Heart Rate (free & $1.99 version available) - This app uses the light and camera on your phone to check your heart rate. I have compared the readings from this app to my Oxometer and it is spot on every time. I was skeptical at first that an app on my phone could actually tell me my pulse rate, but it does genuinely work. This comes in handy if you don't have an Oxometer or cuff nearby and you need a quick reading. It takes about 15 seconds and can tell you what your heart rate is and then let's you store the event to keep track. You can add tags to the reading like "After Exercise," "Sitting," "Resting," etc so you can look back and see what condition you were in at the time. You can also add your own tags to it, so I added tags for "herxing," "anxiety," and other useful keywords that fit my criteria.
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Moon (free) - The full moon and new moon can cause symptoms in a lot of Lyme patients. It isn't really known exactly why this happens, but just as the moon has the ability to change the tides it is theorized that since the human body is 60-65% water it effects it similarly. Those who are already sensitive like the chronically ill might feel the changes as it flares up symptoms, while others who are healthy probably don't even notice it. I never used to feel the moon until I got sick, and even then I didn't understand why once a month I felt so much worse. Eventually I was clued in and everything made sense. This app tells you what phase the moon is in currently as well as when the next full moon & new moon are. You can also add the dates to your calendar with an easy click so you can plan ahead.
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Sleep Time ($0.99) - Sleep time works as a comprehensive sleep analysis app and alarm clock. You turn it on and place it under your pillow while you sleep (or attempt to sleep). In the morning it will tell you how many hours you spent in each of the sleep cycles, how long you were awake, and how much movement there was. You can actually see on a graph exactly what your cycle was like and how much deep sleep vs light sleep you got. This is helpful if you are curious or want to track what quality of sleep you are getting. It also works as a neat alarm clock. You pick a time that you need to be up (say 8:00), and the app will pick a time within a 30 minute time frame of that to wake you when you are in the lightest sleep. If it senses that you are in light sleep at 7:45 then it will wake you then before you have a chance to fall into another stage of deeper sleep which is harder to awake from. Pretty nifty. Overall I use it to simply track my sleep hours & have a visual log on hand.
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Period Tracker Deluxe (free & $1.99 version available) - Often times Lyme disease & other chronic illnesses will mess with the hormonal balance in women. Thyroid problems directly affect the adrenal glands which affect the pituitary glands & the next thing you know it's also causing problems with the menstrual cycle. Women with Lyme disease also commonly develop PCOS and Endometriosis as a complication of the hormonal system being thrown off whack, and basically what you end up with is a really tangled web of conditions which result in a symptom flare during ovulation or menses (sometimes both). I have found that tracking menstrual cycle dates and symptoms is very helpful because I can look back on patterns & know when to expect things. It's an easy app to use and comes a lot more in handy than you'd think.
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Keeper Password Vault (free & paid version) - Having the memory of a goldfish is a huge disadvantage living in this day and age. Absolutely everything requires creating an account and making a password, and some places have guidelines of what you can and can't use (must have lower and uppercase, must contain a number and symbol, etc). If you try to keep the same password everywhere then if someone hacks you and gets 1 password they can essentially then hack into absolutely everything else. So, this leaves you with needing to remember 100 different combinations of different passwords, all because you want to stay safe online. It's exhausting for health people and even more exhausting when you are chronically ill. I have had this Keeper Password Vault for 3 years now and I love it. It is completely secure, meaning every single time you open the app it requires a 4 digit code OR a fingerprint. As long as you can remember that you can have access to all your info. It helps you store credit card info to have easily on hand and even lets you upload important documents. Essentially it is a digital vault that has high security in place to keep your info safe. I choose to pay $10 a year in order to have more space and back up options, but you can use it without that. Highly recommend this for keeping life organized.
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Pill Pack
Pill Pack is probably one of THE coolest services I have seen for managing medications. You basically transfer all your prescription medications from CVS/Walgreens etc. to Pill Pack, who then simplifies life by organizing it all for you and sorting it out for each day in a handy pack. If you click through the slideshow below it will explain much better than I could, but basically instead of getting 20 pill bottles and worrying about sorting them yourself, Pill Pack does all the work for you. All you have to do is grab your pouch and take the pills as needed. It's easy to manage your meds & they take the same insurance that all major pharmacies use. The best part is that you don't need to leave the house to pick up prescriptions because it comes to you every month. It's like magic. They even contact your doctor for you to get the refills you need so you don't have to deal with anything. It's all taken care off and can be managed via your phone with a few clicks. Did I mention it's like magic?
(This is NOT sponsored, I was not paid for this in any way)
Pill Pack is probably one of THE coolest services I have seen for managing medications. You basically transfer all your prescription medications from CVS/Walgreens etc. to Pill Pack, who then simplifies life by organizing it all for you and sorting it out for each day in a handy pack. If you click through the slideshow below it will explain much better than I could, but basically instead of getting 20 pill bottles and worrying about sorting them yourself, Pill Pack does all the work for you. All you have to do is grab your pouch and take the pills as needed. It's easy to manage your meds & they take the same insurance that all major pharmacies use. The best part is that you don't need to leave the house to pick up prescriptions because it comes to you every month. It's like magic. They even contact your doctor for you to get the refills you need so you don't have to deal with anything. It's all taken care off and can be managed via your phone with a few clicks. Did I mention it's like magic?
(This is NOT sponsored, I was not paid for this in any way)