Chronic Illness Must Haves: Gadgets to Make Your Life Easier

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Last Updated on March 9, 2023 by melissanreynolds

Chronic illness must haves are subjective. As a mama with chronic illness, I am always looking for ways to “buy energy” or make my life easier. I’ve been cultivating quite a wish list of gadgets to make life easier and thought I’d share it with you, in case if gives you ideas or spurs you to get something you’ve been waiting on.

These are less about managing symptoms and more about making life easier.

Affiliate notice: please note that some of my links are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

These are my chronic illness must haves

Stick Vacuum

Vacuuming is tiring. It also needs to be done regularly when you have children and pets. Pulling the machine out, putting the parts together, plugging it in and then lugging it around is hard. I want the Dyson V8 Animal Cordless vacuum because my sister has one and loves it. With a dog with long, white hair, I also need the “animal” version of vacuums.

If you wanted an automatic vacuum, this robot vacuum is recommended for those with pets.

Hot Air Dryer Brush

As if it wasn’t a chore in itself to wash my hair, the whole drying and styling thing is ridiculous. I have thick hair that will fall into curls if I leave it to air dry. Unfortunately, I have so much hair that the curls never sit right. It takes a lot of effort to straighten or blow dry my hair. So, I mostly let it air dry and then straighten the front and top to smooth out my ponytail.

This hot air dryer brush comes with good reviews, from people I know!

Exercise Machine

I love exercise. As long as it’s in the right format and quantity for my body. In an ideal world, I’d get out for a good walk every day. But the intersection of energy, weather and time is one that rarely meets. When I do get out, I tend to overdo it. My body needs little and often. Not more, twice a week. I like the idea of an elliptical machine that has the option of sitting down. This is especially good if orthostatic intolerance is an issue. I need to rebuild my muscle after the trauma that pregnancy with pelvic instability issues caused and I need to be able to do a little, often. So this is a good option.

Steam Mop

A steam mop is a great way to get the bathroom, toilet and kitchen floors clean without lugging around buckets of icky water. This one can be used for 15 different surfaces.

Pressure Cooker and Slow Cooker

These two are basically the only way I manage to keep my family fed. I hate cooking, meal planning and all the rest of it. Using the slow cooker and instant pot mean I can easily prepare meals with limited hands on time and make enough for more than one meal at a time. Win-win! This Instant Pot allows slow cooking, pressure cooking, rice cooking and more.

At-Home Coffee Machine

This is one I actually already have and adore. I love my morning cuppa. Once I get home from dropping the children off at school and kindy, whether I’m working or home with the little ones, I make a nice cuppa. The return on investment on my coffee machine is high. I have this one and I love it. I have the Nespresso Pumpkin Spice Cake pods right now and with a quarter teaspoon of sweetened condensed milk, it takes just like the Starbucks version. The pods are $1.40 (NZD), plus maybe a dollar for the other costs (oat milk, sweetened condensed milk and electricity) – saving me like $6 per coffee!

Fitbit (Fitness Tracker)

This is another one that I already have, but I can’t live without. This one is like mine, but there are so many options you will want to choose functionality and size for your purposes. I love that I can track heart rate (including resting heartrate), sleep, steps and so much more. I wrote about using a Fitbit here.

These are the top of my chronic illness must haves. The first few are what are on my wish list right now, and the rest are what I have and swear by. What are yours?

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