I was contacted a few weeks ago by Wave Health to ask if I would consider using and reviewing their health-tracking app.
The Wave Health App was created after one of the company’s founders was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The app was initially created specifically for people undergoing cancer treatment. However, the company then realised that their app could benefit more people with other chronic health conditions.
Why I Wanted to Review the Wave Health App
I was keen to try it out because tracking health can be beneficial for people living with chronic pain or a chronic illness. A few years ago, I created a template that people could use to do this. However, using an app can make the task much simpler and faster.
What Triggers or Worsens Your Pain
The Benefits of Tracking Health
When you start tracking your health, you can learn so much about it. You might find things that trigger your symptoms, things that lessen your symptoms and you might find patterns that you didn’t know existed. Sometimes those things are obvious but others aren’t and it’s only by tracking that you might discover them.
Tracking medication can also be beneficial especially if your doctor has prescribed a new course of treatment. It can allow you to see whether or not it is helping and let you see if side effects are easing off or getting worse.
The information gained from tracking your health like this can be invaluable to both yourself and your doctors. The more information you can give to your doctor, the more likely they will be able to help you.
Although I always suggest that people track their health, I would also say that it’s not good to spend too long doing it in case you become too absorbed in it. This is why I find an app more beneficial than physically writing everything down. It takes a minute at most a few times a day to tick some boxes and add a note when necessary. Then it’s done. You can forget about it and get on with other things in your life.
What Does the Wave Health App Do?
You can personalise the Wave Health App to allow you to input all the data you’d like to collect. It asks you about your mood and symptoms and can keep track of everything that can influence your symptoms. You can add the medication you take and set reminders so you don’t forget to take them.
Using the App to Track Symptoms
First of all, you tell the app which symptoms or conditions you want to track. Whenever you start typing in the search bar, the app will suggest health issues. If your particular symptom or condition isn’t listed, you can add your own. That list can be updated at any time. You can then rate your symptoms using a simple scale as often throughout the day as necessary. This means that if you’re having a good morning, but your pain suddenly flares mid-afternoon, you can add that. There is also space to write a note to accompany the scores.
Tracking Medication
You can also track your medication. The app allows you to add each medication you use along with the time you take them. You can also set a reminder on your phone so you won’t forget to take them. And just like most things on the Wave Health App, you have the ability to add a note.
Tracking Triggers
Then we move to all the factors in life that might or might not influence your symptoms. There is a wide range to choose from, for example: water consumption, sleep, food, exercise and menstrual cycle. Those are just a few of the choices but there are many more. There is also an option to use the custom tracker button so that you can add anything else you’d like to track. For example, you might want to track the weather or a particular food or drink if you think they might be having an impact on your pain or illness.
Using the App to Track Positive Aspects of Life
Do you spend enough time on yourself doing the things that you enjoy? Most of us don’t. I like the idea of using the app track how much time you spend on more positive aspects of your life. You could track things like hobbies, being with family or self-care routines. Perhaps you’ll discover that you spend very little time on yourself and if you increase it, you might a change in your mood.
Checking Your Findings
Obviously, after tracking everything daily, you’ll want to check your findings. You can scroll through the insights section to do this. You might find that your repeated migraines have occurred the day after eating a specific food. Or you might find that you’ve been in a more positive mood after spending time each day on a favourite hobby.
The App is Free to Use But There Is a Pro Version
Everything that I have explained about the app so far is free but there is also a subscription version. The Wave Pro subscription provides health reports which are emailed to you in a PDF. Wave Health gave me the opportunity to use their Pro version so that I could have access to the health report. The health report is useful as it shows the relationship between symptoms and factors without you having to check the insights section yourself.
Wave Pro costs $10.99 a month or $54.99 every 6 months but it gives all users a 30-day free trial so you’d be able to try it with no obligation to purchase the full subscription.
The Benefits of Using the Wave Health App
The Wave Health App is very user-friendly. The company offers simple tutorial videos for most aspects of the app. You can also contact them easily for extra support which comes from extremely friendly staff who are keen to help.
I think Wave Health have covered everything needed for health tracking. I love that the app can be tailored to suit anyone’s needs. Nobody’s health is the same, nobody’s symptoms are the same and nobody’s triggers are the same. So an app that can be personalised to suit an individual’s needs is paramount. And, in my opinion, Wave Health App does that.
Click here to visit the Wave Health website to learn more about the app.
Thank you so much for reading.
If this post resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
And feel free to share it with your friends or support groups.
Take care,
Liz.
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The Wave app wasn’t one I’d heard about before but I love finding new products and services so this is a really helpful review. I know a few people I’ve spoken to over time have found tracking things about their health/illnesses has been good for them for different reasons.
I’m still quite old school so I like templates like you did and doing things by hand, but I have used a tracking app before. I think that any app that can make it more appealing to use it and easier to customise it would be good, which it sounds like the Wave App does in terms of adding your own symptoms rather than being stuck with only pre-chosen ones, annotating with your own notes, etc. I’ll have to take a look-see at the free version and maybe take out the trial to see what the full version is like – I think it’d be useful for my mum with some problems she’s having lately as we can’t quite figure out what’s going on.
Fantastic review, Liz! xx
It’s not a bad app, but its similar to the CareClinic app which is much more popular and widely-used!