Apps for Chronic Illness

A recent article from HealthDay.com stated that only 14% of chronically ill patients use apps to track symptoms and medication effects, despite the potential for improvement of an individual’s chronic illness through using a health tracking app. Health tracking apps can aide both patients and doctors with symptom and medication management, track the progression of the disease, and allow patients to provide accurate detailed information to their healthcare team. Below are several apps to consider using to manage microscopic colitis.

Journal My Health
​Journal My Health is a free app that allows users to track daily well being, stress levels, sleep, symptoms, medications and menstrual cycles. The app also integrates daily weather statistics and allows Apple Watch users to sync data. In addition, patients can export a pdf report to their healthcare team. The app is easy to use and allows for customization. Journal My Health focuses on general daily health and medication tracking. It is available for download on both Google play and the App Store.

mySymptoms
For a nominal fee, mySymptoms expands health tracking to include a food log, medications, supplements, mood, symptoms, bowel movements, energy, sleep, stress, exercise, environment and menstrual cycle. Similar to Journal My Health, the app allows individuals to personalize symptoms and users can create a pdf report to email or print.  mySymptoms requires a steeper learning curve to use the app, but once mastered, it allows for a more in-depth analyses of health. Although the app does not automatically add local weather conditions, it can be added manually in the environment section. Also, mySymptoms does not offer data syncing with wearable devices.

Happy Poop: Toilet Journal Log
​An innovative and user friendly app available for free, Happy Poop takes an in-depth approach to tracking daily bowel movements. The app logs date, time, duration, color, Bristol scale type, notes and additional traits such as mucus, blood, food pieces. Users can stick to the generic app generated picture of their bowel movement or upload a real photo. Happy Poop includes separate areas to also track menstruation information as well as daily habits. Users can enjoy the bonus features of the app like Sudoku, relaxing music, and related general information topics. Finally, Happy Poop analyzes the data into charts, graphs and tables.