A Slave To Medical Technology?*

A few weeks ago, I took this bag of change I had to a coin counting machine. I’ve had the change for maybe a year, and figured I probably had about $70 worth. Turns out I actually had almost $160 worth of change. Change that I take out of my wallet everyday and save, because I don’t like carrying it around. Basically “found” money.

Anyway, rather than save that money, I decided to buy an IPod Touch. My aunt and a friend’s husband had both recently purchased one, and it looked pretty cool to me. It’s not something that I absolutely needed, but it only ended up costing me about $30 because of the change I had turned in.

I never thought I’d be a slave to technology, but this thing is awesome. Aside from making me more hyper-organized than I already am, the best things are useful and cheap (read $.99 or free) applications that are useful to those of us with chronic illnesses.

(Check out my pictures of screenshots from ITunes on my computer…)

I’ve downloaded a medication tracker, iMedication, which allows you to put in the name of the medication, the dosage and frequency, and the prescription number and when it is due to run out. It keeps all of your medication in a very convenient list right at your fingertips. Much better than my handwritten index card that I keep in my wallet, which has to be re-written every time a dose changes.

I’ve also downloaded MyEmergency, an application that allows you to keep all of your personal information, plus next of a kin, allergies, a list of the names of the medications you take, medical conditions, doctor details, and insurance information.

Another great application is My Pain Diary Lite (Lite as in free). This allows you to rate your pain intensity (on a scale of 1 to 10; no silly smiley faces here), the type, location, and trigger of the pain, and the remedy. I think this is a good way to more accurately keep track of flares, which I haven’t been very good at doing. It’s also good for people who keep a paper pain journal.

On the whole, I haven’t found one application in which I love all of the features, that’s why I have several separate ones. There’s also Medical Records and My Health Records, which are both free. I just downloaded those and am going to play around with them.

Obviously, there are going to be some things that won’t get completely digitized any time soon, like prescriptions and lab requisition forms. But on the whole, I’m really impressed with what’s out there, which seem especially useful for people who have complicated medical histories and health issues.

Although I guess there’s always the question of whether you really want to put all of your information in one place because 1) someone else could easily get their hands on it, 2) what happens if the IPod breaks, and 3) what if you don’t have it with you when you need it? Also, I wonder how doctors these days feel about their patients using such technologies. Do they streamline the doctor-patient encounter or make it more cumbersome?

Along with fancy IPod applications, there are a plethora of Internet sites, some more social network-y and free – like Cure Together and Medpedia - and some more practical and expensive, like Minerva.

If you know of other sites/programs that you particularly like (or don’t), leave them in the comments. I’m interested to know peoples’ experiences with technology as it relates to chronic illness. Do you partake or opt to stay away?

* I have posted about these product out of my own personal experience with them, and not because I have received compensation, financial or otherwise, from these companies.