19 Ways The Smart Phone Can Help With Fibro, CFS And Other Invisible Illnesses

Twenty-five ways the smart phone can help manage Fibro fog, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, Chronic pain and all other invisible illness.

The 24 ways your smart phone can help with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and all the other invisible illnesses. A while back, I wrote a post for the Fibro Champions Blog that was entitled 22 Items For Your Fibro Emergency Go Bag. The article applies to CFS and all other chronic illnesses of invisible illnesses.

These twenty-four ways a smart phone can help with your chronic illnesses may depend on what type of smart phone you have. I have an Apple iPhone. But I assume the competitive nature of the smart phones would provide many of the same default apps and many of the same downloaded apps.

We will review the fifteen default apps that can help with chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and invisible illnesses. We will save the seven downloadable apps for a separate article after the Fibro Journey Book is published in about a month or so. I am very busy putting the final touches on the book so I can’t write as much or as often while finishing the book.

The apps that come with a smart phone eliminate nine items on the list, almost half. 22 Items For Your Fibro Emergency Go-bag.

1. Extra Cell Phone Battery. 2. Cell Phone Charger. 3. Two days’ worth of all your MEDs. 4. Earphones for your cell phone. 5. Book(s) to read. 6. A notepad. 7. Pen or pencil. 8. MEDs. List. 9. Medical History. 10. Scriptures. 11. Food, at least enough to take your MEDs. Protein bars or energy bars. 12. Bottled water. 13. Cards, or some other small game. 14. Emergency money other than what you have in your wallet. 15. Small comfy pillow. 16. A small blanket. 17. Pair of comfy socks. 18. Tens Unit. 19. Heating Pad. 20. Reading Glasses. 21. Personal female items. 22. A few DVDs

Let me tell you how I got the idea. I was telling one of my daughters who says yes to our request to work around the house but forgets to do her chores. I said when you say yes to do a chore set an alarm for when you will be ready to do the chore and you’ll remember to do it.

As I told her that, the idea came to me that I do well in writing down “to do list” but forget to look at the lists due to my short term memory issues from fibro fog. So I thought I would do the same, put my to do list on my smart phone alarm. Then I started to think of all the other ways a smart phone could help me manage my disease.

Using a smart phone makes items number one, two and four all the more important in your go bag with the heavy reliance on your smart phone. After all, if you don’t keep your phone charged it won’t be very helpful.

On my smart phone I have the following default apps on my iPhone:

1. Calendar: Using the smart phone calendar is particularly good because it will provide reminders of the appointments the day before with a beep or custom tone.

2. Camera: Can be used for note taking. For instance, if you need to take notes from a medical document, take a picture and save your hands from getting tired. Also, you can take pictures of your pill bottles so you will always know what pills you are taking. This is important because most doctors’ office want to know what your current MEDs are. There are also other obvious reasons for a camera.

3. Clock: Keeping track of time is easy with a smart phone, especially for those who don’t like to wear watches.

4. Maps: The Google maps app and other map apps will give you driving instructions to get where you need to go. When you’re going to many new doctors this can be helpful.

5. Notes: The notes app eliminates three items from Go Bag mentioned in a previous post. It gets rid or a pen, pencil and note pad.

6. Safari: Helps you access the Internet

7. Telephone: Don’t forget that will all the bells and whistles of a smart phone, a smart phone is primarily a telephone allowing you easy communication where ever you are.

8. Voice Memos: If typing in the Notes app is too tedious for your painful fingers, then using the Voice Memo app. It’s a good way to take notes when you’re in a doctor’s office, ER or some other place where note taking may be beneficial..

9. Weather: The weather app tells you the weather for the day and the upcoming week. Having Weather knowledge is important to plan our upcoming days.

10. Speaker Phone: The speaker phone allows more than one person to be in on the conversation.

11. Texting: Many smart phone plans allow unlimited texting which is a good way to communicate. Testing is a good way to communicate should you find yourself in a place the requires quiet. With texting, you can always communicate.

12. Recents: On the iPhone is a list of all your recent incoming and outgoing phone calls. If someone calls you while you’re driving or otherwise unable to answer the phone you can call them back if you recognize the phone number.

13. Favorite and commonly used phone numbers: For any doctor, health care provider, hospital in your area, program in the phone number so you’ll recognize who is calling you. And on the favorite list of phone numbers, reserve this for the most frequently called numbers.

14. Alarm: The Alarm feature may be one of the best features for those with fibro fog. Besides the calendar that will remind you a day before of your appointments, the Alarm can be set for appointments that come up that day or that will be coming up in the future. It will sound an alarm and remind you of pending appointments. This is my new best friend. I am very good at making to do lists, but I forget to look at them. This feature will do away with that problem.

15. Timer: The timer is awesome for me when I put something in the oven and then go to my den. I can’t hear the oven alarm so I set my timer to coincide with the oven timer. When it goes off, then I go down to the oven.

16. Games: Games are a good way to get your mind off of things. Every phone that I know of comes with several default games. However, there are countless games that can be downloaded for free to add to your list on your phone.

17. Voice Activated – Siri: For the Apple IPhone Siri is the name of voice activation and hands off using many features of your phone. This is a good safety feature.

18. Hands free, Blue tooth: A blue tooth feature is usually an add-on purchase but it gives you more hands free ability to talk on your phone while safely driving.

19. Calculator: The Calculator is a great app for figuring out many simple math questions.

There are thousands of free download apps to add to your iPhone giving you more features to deal with in managing your chronic invisible illnesses. Smart phone users have access to download thousands of additional apps for free thousands more for a small charge. In the next installment of this article we will talk about at least thirteen downloadable apps that we will go into after I am finished with my fibro book in about a month or less.

Helpful Downloadable Apps

Facebook

Flash Light

Games

Google Search

Health App

Music

Reader Apps

Scriptures

YouTube

Google Pay or other payment apps.

Translator

Compass

Read bar codes

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