medication side effects Archives - Living with Scleroderma

Tag, I’m It

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:00:35 +0000

And so, despite my best efforts, I caught the flu, too. I thought I was being really careful taking care of Al, who quarantined in our home. Wore a mask, brought him meals, the whole bit. He came down with it last Sunday. By mid-week, I was still doing fine, even went to Pilates on […]

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And Then This Happened

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:00:29 +0000

I have spent far too much time with medical professionals of late. Last Thursday, my blood pressure suddenly spiked. I don’t typically measure it. When it goes too high, I just know. My heart, normally gently beating in the background, pounds in my ears and makes my chest vibrate. Usually this subsides. But on Thursday, […]

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Side Effects

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 12:00:52 +0000

Last Tuesday afternoon, I got my second shingles vaccination. My first Shingrix shot, back in February, gave me a sore arm with a rash that lasted more than a week. But it was otherwise unremarkable. This time, however, was different. By bedtime, my arm was achy, per usual after a vaccination. But I had trouble […]

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Getting a Boost

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 12:00:46 +0000

I got my Covid bivalent booster vaccination last Thursday—Pfizer this time, as opposed to Moderna up until now. I scheduled the shot for mid-afternoon, knowing I could set aside Thursday evening and Friday for down time if I got sick, as expected from past experience. While I did get draggy and had some achy joints, […]

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The Nose Knows

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 13:00:36 +0000

One of the odd and frustrating complexities of my scleroderma is the production of calcium deposits. Typically these grow under my finger tips, at pressure points. And every so often, they rise to the surface—sometimes painfully, sometimes not—until they break through. Their consistency ranges from toothpaste to a pebble. The calcium can ooze out or poke […]

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In the Belly of the Beast

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:49 +0000

There’s no such thing as a non-invasive test. Some are just more invasive than others. Last week I found myself inside a clanging, banging, buzzing, bleeping MRI machine, undergoing a 25-minute diagnostic that was probably unnecessary, one of those just-in-case procedures you occasionally have to endure because one of your specialists needs to validate a […]

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24

Evelyn Herwitz — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:00:30 +0000

Twenty-four years ago yesterday, I was sitting with my 91-year-old Grandma Elli on her upstairs front porch in Cincinnati, overlooking a tree full of ripe apples. It was the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, and we were talking about life. I didn’t know this would be the last time I’d see her before she would die […]

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Music of the Spheres

Evelyn Herwitz — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:35:47 +0000

I woke up around 5:30 one morning this week to the sound of intermittent electronic chirping. At first, I thought it was my husband’s beeper. Occasionally Al, a hospital social worker, is on call for ethics consults. But the sound was coming from the hallway outside our bedroom. Alas, it was our smoke detector’s low […]

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