New Health and Medication Tracker App - KnowYourMeds. This one is an absolute keeper!

In my almost twenty years with lupus, I've tried my fair share of apps to manage various aspects of my disease. In fact, I thought of creating my own lupus app at one point, because nothing on the market suited my needs. Fortunately, the idea of manufacturing pillbags trumped that of app development, making room for KnowYourMeds - one of the best medication and health tracking I've come across. 

You can check it out here, and download is available for both android and iphone. Here are a few of my favorite features, including their fantastic logo (clever, right?):  

1) TRACK and GRAPH VITALS: Love that you can track vitals like temperature, blood pressure, etc on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and your input creates a report that then shows up as graph. Genius! Here's a screenshot of my temperature tracking from this week, in both graph and list form: 

If only I'd had this years ago! There were weeks on end where I would run a low-grade fever every single day. It made me feel horrible - run down, flu-ish, and fatigued (Doesn't that just sum up lupus, though?) I remember trying to chart my temperature, so I could remind myself a) that I wasn't crazy for feeling so awful, and b) so I would remember to tell my doctor exactly what had been going on between appointments. It takes courage to speak up at the doctor, especially when you're feeling crummy. So to be able to walk in with charted proof of what I'd experienced really helped. I tracked a ton of other symptoms, too, over the years - simply on a piece of paper. Here's one that I found from years ago: 

I can hardly even identify what I was charting back then! Pain level on a scale of 1-10, I believe, with markers for joint swelling, napping, and exercising, maybe? It worked for me back then, but this jumble of lines tells you how clean and constructive an graphing app like this would be! 

2) TRACK and EXPORT SIDE EFFECTS: Love that you can track side effects that you're experiencing, and export to a report that can be printed out and taken to the doctor. Such an effective conversation tool for appointments!

3) TRACK APPOINTMENTS and LABS: Love that they've included a tracking system for doctor appointments, lab results and bloodwork, too. It's all there - and, in fact, auto-populates once you add the condition(s) you want to track. I'm thinking of adding my mom, who lives with us, as a user. It would be so helpful to manage her health related issues, of which there are many!

4) TRACK MEDICATIONS with REMINDERS: Love that the medication tracker includes refill reminders, as well as daily reminders to take medication at the times and dosages you specify. Some apps are clunky when it comes to entering the medications - but not this one. It was quite simple, and auto filled once I starting typing the drug name. 

5) GOODRX and PUBMED TIE-INs: Love, too, that there are valuable tie-ins with outside sites like GoodRx and PubMed. As you can read about here, I am a huge fan of GoodRx,, since they've saved me thousands of dollars over the years. In KnowYourMeds, you can search from within the app to find the best pricing on the medications the app knows you're taking. Brilliant! 

For the PubMed tie in, you can literally search right from the app to find articles or seek clarification on all things medical related. Granted, it's a bit technical in lingo, but I would have researched every serology report I received back in the day, before I understood what SED rates and Complement Levels meant!

Here's the link to download the app and try it out. Might be fun to play around with it over the weekend. You'll end the year with a real organizing burst!