Many of us struggle to manage our chronic conditions, between ongoing appointments, day to day life, and coping with the unpredictable symptoms of our conditions. This is where our mobile phones come in handy. Thanks to ever-evolving technology, we can feel empowered and a bit more in control of our overall well-being by tracking, managing, and learning about our ongoing health treatment.
Going with the adage of what gets measured gets improved. There are a few things we can do to make managing our chronic disease(s) easier. The first step is keeping your care team in the loop, the second is following through on your care plan consistently, and the last is to focus on monitoring and potentially improving your treatment plan as needed.
Having a Care Team Can Help
We all utilize the help of others to maintain our health one way or another. The case may also be that you could be taking care of others.
As an example, in the CareClinic health diary app, you can add caregivers phone numbers to quickly save all information in one place for times of need. 
Additionally, users can enable the sharing of “Progress Reports” which include adherence information and all other modalities to optimize your health. Sometimes a caregiver may not be aware of what you need to take and when, this too can be shared via the “Share Care Plans” functionality.
Sticking to Your Care Plan Can Be Easy
A care plan from your doctor may encompass taking certain medications at a certain time. However, a comprehensive care plan is much more than that. A care plan is your “self care to-do list” which will enable rapid health improvements.
It may include eating healthier, eating at a certain time, tracking and managing your calories or sugar levels. Some other things that can be added to a care plan may include tracking activities, therapies and even setting reminders to check certain measurements and symptoms throughout the day.
A care plan is everything you need to do to maintain good health. Adding these values will reduce cognitive burden and help you remain on track. An app such as the CareClinic app can provide alerts, notifications and warnings based on your care plan, even better.
Monitoring Progress and Adjusting Your Health Accordingly
Patients often wonder if there is a point in maintaining a health diary. It may make sense to use a calendar or reminders to be notified when to take medications, but are there any inherent benefits to recording when medication was taken, or how we felt afterwards in a diary? 
The answer as you can imagine by now is an astounding “Yes, there is a point and a need.” By recording this pertinent information in a health diary, you no longer have to guess and see if a certain medication is causing adverse reactions or flare-ups. You’re taking the guesswork out the picture and providing yourself with more clarity.
Apps are now capable of leveraging AI to automatically help you figure out what’s working and what’s not. Even if the app is not able to make these correlations, your care team will appreciate the undertaking and potentially understand your health a bit better. When you provide data in a structured way to professionals, they can better learn and tweak their treatment for you, no matter what condition you are up against.
Tracking Health for a Better You
A health diary enables greater understanding about your own health and helps communicate the information in an objective way to healthcare professionals.
Web based and mobile diaries are a tool that can help you discover new information about yourself and provide for a more in dept history of how your treatment is progressing. In fact, it has been proven that maintaining a health diary can lead to a multitude of benefits (see this study). You can easily get into the habit by starting to track the essentials and then slowly adding more items to your care plan as you start to see patterns emerge.
This post is sponsored by CareClinic. Thoughts and opinions shared were my own.
of Maryland, never knew how much her strong faith would help her through the ups and downs of chronic illness. As a wife, mom of three, and an educator, Kolby shares a heartfelt, eye-opening piece that beautifully captures how faith correlates to the daily battles we face as people with IBD. 
I was as sick as I’d ever been in my life, and couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting better. In December 2019, I received confirmation that I had Crohn’s Disease. I was afraid. But through the wind and the waves, I heard Him say “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
Soon, though, Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and focused instead on the wind and the waves and began to sink. He cried out “Lord, save me!” (Matthew 14:30) and Jesus instantly reached out His hand to catch Peter. When He pulled Peter from the water Jesus simply asked “Why did you doubt?” They returned to the boat and the wind and waves cease.
I found myself focusing on all the tests and doctor’s appointments I had to go to, and the infusions I’ll have to take for the rest of my life to maintain any sense of health I used to know. I focused on the unpredictability that is Crohn’s, and not on the predictable, steadfast love that can only be found in our Savior.
When you fall in love with IBD, there’s an extra layer of complexity, trust, dependency, and appreciation. There’s no telling what the next hour will bring. You need to be flexible. You need to be understanding that plans may not go as expected. You need to trust that when the next flare up strikes that you won’t be on your own and that your partner will be there every step of the way.
You need to believe that when the going gets tough you won’t be deserted; you won’t be made to feel as a burden. You need to trust that your partner sees you as much more than your disease.
In a world where we all want immediate gratification, think about how it feels when you share something and there are crickets on the other end. Use your social media channels as a platform to share what you care about and what matters most to you, rather than trying to think about what others want to see.
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