Using Health Storylines for Self-Care

This is a blog post by Elizabeth Pain at The Unbroken Smile.

Physical self-care is extremely important with a chronic illness or chronic pain condition. Many of us seek out nutrition and exercise. We try to take our medication on time and as prescribed and we see our doctor regularly. If you have a condition/conditions like Complex Regional Pain Syndrome or Fibromyalgia like I do, you know the importance of physical self care. Sometimes keeping track of all these things on top of our daily chronic pain just seems impossible. Like us, millions of people world-wide try to track and balance their symptoms daily.

The first way I try to keep balance is I try to eat a lot of healthy foods and foods that are anti-inflammatory, but lets face it I didn’t always eat as healthy as I should have. I started tracking what I ate and then looking back at my symptoms. I was amazed to see something as simple as the food I chose to eat made my pain worse (sometimes up to two days later). I’m not a doctor so I can’t tell you exactly why, maybe its the processing or the chemicals to preserve the particular foods, but through tracking my symptoms I found that these foods do in fact make my pain worse and I needed to stay away from them.

Vitamins and pain medication has also become a crucial part of how I get through living with these conditions. It is important to remember to take my medication on time everyday and as prescribed. If I forget or if I miss a dose I know I hurt more. Waiting to have my medication kick in when it’s too late is exhausting and stressful. Recently, I was switched from a pain patch that I changed once a week to having to take pills a few times each day. Once the pain patch was on I could forget about it and let it do it’s job. I loved the luxury of it, but it wasn’t as effective as it was when I started it many years ago so my doctor decided to switch me back to pills. I admit I was concerned as I seem to always forget to take my pills and I knew I was going to need a reminder.

I was excited when I heard about Self Care Catalysts and how they create health based apps for people with lots of different conditions. One app they created that sparked my interest is the Health Storylines App. I loaded it to my phone and started using it that very day. Everything I was doing already was on one free app! It’s medication tracker and reminder are fantastic! It insured me to take my medication on time so that my pain didn’t get out of control. I also added the food diary/meal tracker and symptom tracker to my main screen of the app and it truly is a blessing. All the meals and symptoms from it, was rolled into one convenient app loaded on my phone. Health Storylines app has made my life so much easier! I even use the appointment calendar to keep track of all my upcoming doctor appointments. I love the Health Storylines app and I would recommend it to anyone with a chronic illness or chronic pain condition. I also want to thank the creators, Self Care Catalysts, for making my life more manageable!