Sclero-what?

At work, I generally always wear gloves. Especially in the colder weather. There is not a time when I don't. My hands would just freeze and stop working. I get a lot of questions, and I never really know how to answer. I typically answer with quick replies and hope they don't ask more questions. Depending on how they ask their question also depends on how I respond. "Why are you wearing gloves?" -- My hands are cold, is usually the easiest question to answer. "Is it really that cold?" -- No, I just feel like wearing gloves for fun. This one I tend to get a bit snippy with, because yes, it really is that cold. Why else would I wear gloves? (I usually just say yes and move on) "Do you have carpal tunnel?" -- No, my hands are just cold "Do you have arthritis?" -- Kind of, a form of it, I guess, typically followed by, "You're too young for arthritis." -- Yes, yes I am. For a long time I just would use the, "my ha...

Sometimes you just have to laugh when trials come upon you. I have lots of funny stories I could tell, but I had to share this. I saw it on a Scleroderma discussion website, where there are also some very helpful discussions that I've found. But this is called, " You Might Be a Scleroderma Patient If.. ." You Might Be A Scleroderma Patient if.... Your skin is tight and shiny on one side of your body, with a crepe, pasty skin texture on the other; Wearing lipstick is impossible as you no longer have lips; You only have to shave one of your legs due to thick skin and hair loss; (this is not a problem I have. I swear my leg hairs grow 10X faster now that I'm unable to bend over and shave them. I went about 2 months without any form of attempted shaving this last time...not a pretty sight!)   Change handed back to you at the store drops thru your hands onto the counter; (Greg knows this, which is why I can't be driving through a fast food drive thru. One time,...

I had my next appointment with Dr. Walker on the 21st of November. It was good. Just another check to see how I was doing type of a thing. He asked how the Cellcept was working, and I told him fine. He decided to double the dose so I would be taking 2 pills in the morning and 2 in the evening. He asked how the Raynauds was, and I told him about the same. He mentioned a drug that is similar to Viagra (can't remember the name), but he wasn't sure if our insurance would cover it. Then he answered some questions and sent me for more blood tests. It's important to keep testing my blood every so often while I'm on the Cellcept to make sure that it's not killing my kidneys, and to keep my white blood count normal. I'm becoming a pro with the blood giving. When they called with the results, everything was okay, with the exception of the muscle enzymes. Dr. Walker wanted me to start taking 10 mg of Prednisone (Treats inflammation (swelling), severe allergies, compli...

I have been so lucky to meet people who suffer with Scleroderma, Raynaud's, and other various Auto-immune diseases through Instagram. Totally random, right? But it's been really cool. One of the gals that I've 'met' is a very talented artist. She created some superhero and princess prints that she is selling to help pay for her medical bills. Her etsy shop can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/kcmcreations and her facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/kcmcreations?ref=profile Yesterday she shared a link to a YouTube video that I wanted to share here. Its so hard to know what the future holds for me with this disease, and it's kind of hard for people to really understand what this disease does to people, so this video was awesome to kind of explain what Scleroderma is, and how it has impacted the lives of a few people. I totally cried because of the familiarity, so be prepared. It's a fantastic video. I'm just going to post a link to the...