Curing your ailments one iPhone app at a time

Certain people rise above minor illness to conquer any obstacle in their way. I’m thinking specifically of Michael Jordan’s infamous Flu Game against the Utah Jazz in 1997. But not me... no chance. Personally, I get a bad sore throat and a night of cold sweats and I wait for the grim reaper to arrive at my door and deliver me from this minor inconvenience on Earth.

Failing his arrival, I look for apps. That’s what I did this week when some minor malady led to me sleeping roughly 24 hours over a two day period. The time I spent not zonked-out on cold meds was spent searching for good old-fashioned home remedies, the kind mom used to tell me never ever to bother with.

First up I tried Home Remedies ($0.99). Even as I write this, I’m not sure whether to take thiw app seriously or not. Sure, it has some handy tips for dealing with bruises and burns, but I get a bit more wary when it begins to offer tips for fighting Cholera, which I thought only existed in the Oregon Trail.

Needing something a bit more grounded, I tried the free Reader’s Digest Easy Home Remedies app. Boasting home remedies for 74 different ailments was a good start. And the ability to share the remedies with friends via Facebook was sort of charming, even if I’d never actually take the app up on the offer. I was generally sold on the Reader’s Digest app but I wanted more. After all, I wasn’t getting out of bed any time soon.

After following my own home remedy, “Endless tea drinking,” I tried Home Natural Remedies ($0.99), an app that promised me over 1,500 cures. It probably has cures to diseases of which I’ve never even heard. And that’s exciting. I especially liked the app picture of the pestle and mortar with a lemon. That let me know it was all natural from the get-go. Home Natural Remedies was also photo-heavy, which is helpful for someone like myself who can use all the help he can get when purchasing strange roots and leaves.

Finally I arrived at Natural Cures and Remedies ($0.99). It was slightly more bland than the rest, which I suppose was a given considering the name seems like an amalgamation of every similar remedy app out there.

My grand takeaway from this experiment is that while most of these home remedy apps could stand to get a little more creative in the naming department, they all offer a number of creative excuses to hold off on going to the doctor. At least until you’ve run out of odd roots you found on the street to mix into your food. And if I ever get a pet, I’ll be ready with the Home Remedies for Pets ($0.99) app, too! Ugh, that may have been a step too far. I think I’ll go lie down again.