It’s November which means only one thing – it’s time again for the National Health Blog Post hosted by WEGO Health! And once again I am determined to take part and write a post everyday regarding my experiences with chronic illness.
As a member of the Chronically Ill community or a ‘spoonie’ as we are more commonly referred (see my post regarding spoonies and the spoon theory here) I need a number of different apps for a variety of different reasons – those apps to remind me to take my medications throughout the day; apps to help keep track of my personal health conditions such as the frequency and severity of the symptoms I am experiencing. But I also have a number of apps that I use regularly that although not health-related, they do help me through bad times due to chronic illness such as Twitter and Facebook to help me keep in contact with all of the friends that I have met during my personal journey with illness. And there are some games that I play to keep me entertained whether it be in bed when I am too weak to get out of bed, or whether it be for the long waits at hospital waiting for my appointment to begin. My personal favourites are ‘Candy Crush Saga’ and ‘Pet Rescue Saga’, and fun word games such as ‘4 Pics 1 Word’. I also use Instagram to not only document in pictures life with my neurological condition but also to help document successes such as going somewhere new or simply as reminders for fun times to look back on when things are bad.
However, those are the apps that I have on my smartphone, but now technology has developed, I also have apps on my tablet computer which I use when I am stuck in bed or when I am pottering around the house to distract myself from the horrible symptoms. The apps that have made it on my tablet are more entertainment based for the reasons that I have given. For example, I have ‘Netflix’ so that I can watch films or TV programmes from the comfort of bed; and especially convenient as it saves a trip out of bed to put a DVD on as my legs are sometimes too weak to be able to do just that. As well as ‘Netflix’ there is also ‘Sky Go’ and catch-up services such as the ‘BBC iPlayer’ and ‘ITV Player’ to allow me to catch-up on programmes that I have missed. I also have a jigsaw puzzle game that helps distract me from the pain, trembling and dizziness which helps, and finally there is ‘Skype’ that I have just downloaded to my iPad that I intend to use to speak to my friends during times that I cannot get to my computer.
As both my smartphone and tablet computer are Apple Products I use the Apple App Store to find the apps that I own. But for those that are health-related such as ‘Pillboxie’ that I use to alert me to take my medications and the ‘Symple’ app to track the symptoms I experience it may also be useful to talk to other spoonies suffering from a similar conditions as yourself to find apps that they find useful. And always try the free app first and then if the app is right for you and your needs then purchase the full version.
Links to Apps that I have found useful:
- Symple: An elegant symptom journal for your iPhone. Easy to use, and flexible enough to meet any set of symptoms, regardless of condition or disease
- Pillboxie: Pillboxie is the easy way to remember your meds. Other med reminder apps are either too complicated or just downright boring. Pillboxie is easy because it lets you “visually” manage your meds. Scheduling a reminder is as easy as dropping a pill into a pillbox
