This is an overview of my experience using the Visible Plus app in October of 2023 and January of 2024.
Round 1
I got COVID in August of 2023 and had ongoing fatigue. In October I found the Visible Plus app through a news article. The app was free, so I tried it. The UI was very clean and easy to understand. I used it to track my symptoms a couple of days and then the app said that I could try the beta program for Visible Plus, which uses an arm band for continuous heart rate monitoring. This sounded fantastic.
I purchased the Polar Verity Sense from Amazon because Visible said it would take 3 weeks for delivery. Visible customer service was very responsive and helped me subscribe without buying the arm band through them.
I followed the default heart rate guidelines in the app for rest, exertion, and over-exertion. If I sat up and watched a soccer game, it would say I was in exertion. If I laid down and watched re-runs of the Bassmaster Classic, it would say I’m at rest. I went fishing from the bank for about 1.5 hours and it said much of the time I was in over-exertion. I crashed after that fishing outing, so I started to trust the app.
The app helped me figure out what activities were too much and I tried to avoid those. I also tried to rest a lot. Both things helped me get out of a cycle of crashes.
To get my heart rate to “rest,” I spent a lot of time lying down. I later discovered that lying down for long periods of time as the app encouraged me to do made me feel worse.
A doctor suggested I stop using Visible because he thought it would drive me crazy. That day I took the arm band off, uninstalled the app and I immediately started feeling better.
I believe that Visible helped me understand what was rest, exertion, and over-exertion and that helped me stop crashing. Once I stopped crashing, it restricted me too much and I felt worse.
Round 2
Still with long COVID symptoms, but much better, I returned to work, started physical therapy, had the Christmas holidays, and some other family stuff. All that combined caused me to enter another cycle of crashes that I couldn’t seem to get out of. I paid for another month of Visible Plus in January 2024.
Once again, it helped me get out of the crash cycle, but once the crashing stopped, the app made me feel bad, especially around the morning check-in. Read more
Conclusion
Visible Plus helped me stop crashing by showing me when I was exerting myself. It also encouraged me to lie down too much and once I stopped crashing made me feel bad.
If you sign up for the service, I would definitely buy a month at a time not a whole year.
Read more details about my experience with Visible Plus.