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iPhone Applications That Help Me With My IC
(I think these were all free)
RxmindMe
Sound alarms & program activates to remind me to take medications & supplements. I click ‘taken’ … it allows me to adjust the incident time if I took a dose a bit late. I do also set the iPhone alarm for medication times (I had it in place for a while before coming across RxmindMe.
It allows entries for Daily / Hourly / Weekly / Monthly / Specific Dates. It lets you specify powder / capsule / pill etc. It displays a page of all medications you’re taking currently, and a page of all the medications you’re taking (& have taken so far) today. As well as regular medications/supplements, you can add to the ‘As-Needed’ category (maybe naproxen, or perhaps if you take something like Morphine IR for breakthrough pain), and there’s also a One-Off category. It lets you email all prescription info, or all prescription history. It lets you enable a password access code (I went looking for this – don’t want anyone being able to access the opiates info if I happen to forget my phone at a meeting / someone’s house). It lets you archive some meds., if you want to keep a record of what IC treatments you’e tried in the past, or of what opiates did not work for you (do wish they had a ‘notes’ option here, so you could add side effects / why you went off of the medication). You can include a photo of what the pill looks like (if you tend to lose them, or if you love tech features).
Get BladderFit
Includes ‘How’s Your Bladder Today?’ ratings (that converts into a weekly rating graph), Tracker Diary, Weekly and daily voiding graphs. Exercise feature has a stop-start button for pelvic floor muscle contractions. Records it in Diary/Log and progress chart. Lets you set a schedule and remind you to do them. Bladder control self-assessent questionnaire. Medication reminder. Quite a bit of OAB & Pelvic Floor info including ‘training’ info about how to make yourself pee less frequently.
EAU2011
Europe’s largest urology meeting is coming up toward the end of March 2011. This application includes extensive, often quite interesting info about all the new research that is going to be presented here.
Epocrates
Doctors use the costly version, but the free version is all you need – it includes an Interactions feature. Enter everything you’re taking (meds. & some supplements) & click
‘view interactions’. I’ve found this really useful.
Medscape
Also includes Interaction Checker. Often comes up with different interactions info than Epocrates, so might be of interest to check both. As with Epocrates, if it comes up with anything that’s of concern, you can follow up with your pharmacist and / or doctor. Also adds you to include lots of specifics about what each pill looks like, in case you’re a bit disorganized & sometimes find meds. out of the bottles.
Thermometer
Have you developed a UTI on top of your IC? Infection can lead to fever… here’s a convenient way to check if you’re running one. [I think this one has a nominal fee [$1? $2?] -- only one on this list that I haven't actually downloaded].
UroApp
This is a social networking app for urologists in Canada. Not patient-specific, I just thought it was pretty interesting & so am including it here!
'UroApp is a social networking mobile application which will help all urologists to stay connected and be up to with the latest industry information'.
http://uroapp.ca/UroApp_Videos/welcome.html (painfully bad humour – and unfortunately they’re Canadian so it reflects on Canadian humour!)
CardMunch
Keeps track of all the specialists, doctors, labs, pharmacists quickly & easily. Avoid typing everything in to Contacts – this camera application does it for you. Like up the arrows and take photos of their business cards. This converts the info to text and alphabetizes all of them.
Three free medical news apps - I search within them for IC stories:
ReachMD Medical Radio
New England Journal of Medicine
Medical News
Text stories & podcasts
Find iPhone
Once all this critical info like reminders is within your phone, not losing it becomes extremely important. Downloading an app like Find iPhone might be good for that. Unfortunately (and annoyingly) the app only seems to work if you have – and pay for! – the Apple ‘Me’ service.
iPhone Utilities
(‘Utilities’ = part of the phone, didn’t need to be downloaded)
Clock function (for alarms)
I like using both this and RxmindMe– one is sound-specific to each medication (RxmindMe has this option, but with only a few sounds, & less gentle ones!), the other allows me to record incident specifics. I find the multiple-sound options in the iPhone clock function so convenent & helpful that I’d like there to be still more sound options!
(I think these were all free)
RxmindMe
Sound alarms & program activates to remind me to take medications & supplements. I click ‘taken’ … it allows me to adjust the incident time if I took a dose a bit late. I do also set the iPhone alarm for medication times (I had it in place for a while before coming across RxmindMe.
It allows entries for Daily / Hourly / Weekly / Monthly / Specific Dates. It lets you specify powder / capsule / pill etc. It displays a page of all medications you’re taking currently, and a page of all the medications you’re taking (& have taken so far) today. As well as regular medications/supplements, you can add to the ‘As-Needed’ category (maybe naproxen, or perhaps if you take something like Morphine IR for breakthrough pain), and there’s also a One-Off category. It lets you email all prescription info, or all prescription history. It lets you enable a password access code (I went looking for this – don’t want anyone being able to access the opiates info if I happen to forget my phone at a meeting / someone’s house). It lets you archive some meds., if you want to keep a record of what IC treatments you’e tried in the past, or of what opiates did not work for you (do wish they had a ‘notes’ option here, so you could add side effects / why you went off of the medication). You can include a photo of what the pill looks like (if you tend to lose them, or if you love tech features).
Get BladderFit
Includes ‘How’s Your Bladder Today?’ ratings (that converts into a weekly rating graph), Tracker Diary, Weekly and daily voiding graphs. Exercise feature has a stop-start button for pelvic floor muscle contractions. Records it in Diary/Log and progress chart. Lets you set a schedule and remind you to do them. Bladder control self-assessent questionnaire. Medication reminder. Quite a bit of OAB & Pelvic Floor info including ‘training’ info about how to make yourself pee less frequently.
EAU2011
Europe’s largest urology meeting is coming up toward the end of March 2011. This application includes extensive, often quite interesting info about all the new research that is going to be presented here.
Epocrates
Doctors use the costly version, but the free version is all you need – it includes an Interactions feature. Enter everything you’re taking (meds. & some supplements) & click
‘view interactions’. I’ve found this really useful.
Medscape
Also includes Interaction Checker. Often comes up with different interactions info than Epocrates, so might be of interest to check both. As with Epocrates, if it comes up with anything that’s of concern, you can follow up with your pharmacist and / or doctor. Also adds you to include lots of specifics about what each pill looks like, in case you’re a bit disorganized & sometimes find meds. out of the bottles.
Thermometer
Have you developed a UTI on top of your IC? Infection can lead to fever… here’s a convenient way to check if you’re running one. [I think this one has a nominal fee [$1? $2?] -- only one on this list that I haven't actually downloaded].
UroApp
This is a social networking app for urologists in Canada. Not patient-specific, I just thought it was pretty interesting & so am including it here!
'UroApp is a social networking mobile application which will help all urologists to stay connected and be up to with the latest industry information'.
http://uroapp.ca/UroApp_Videos/welcome.html (painfully bad humour – and unfortunately they’re Canadian so it reflects on Canadian humour!)
CardMunch
Keeps track of all the specialists, doctors, labs, pharmacists quickly & easily. Avoid typing everything in to Contacts – this camera application does it for you. Like up the arrows and take photos of their business cards. This converts the info to text and alphabetizes all of them.
Three free medical news apps - I search within them for IC stories:
ReachMD Medical Radio
New England Journal of Medicine
Medical News
Text stories & podcasts
Find iPhone
Once all this critical info like reminders is within your phone, not losing it becomes extremely important. Downloading an app like Find iPhone might be good for that. Unfortunately (and annoyingly) the app only seems to work if you have – and pay for! – the Apple ‘Me’ service.
iPhone Utilities
(‘Utilities’ = part of the phone, didn’t need to be downloaded)
Clock function (for alarms)
I like using both this and RxmindMe– one is sound-specific to each medication (RxmindMe has this option, but with only a few sounds, & less gentle ones!), the other allows me to record incident specifics. I find the multiple-sound options in the iPhone clock function so convenent & helpful that I’d like there to be still more sound options!
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