What Are The Symptoms Of Scleroderma?
Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease which is shown by
hardening or sclerosis most commonly in the skin but could also show in other
organs. Being an autoimmune disease, it happens when the body’s tissues are
being attacked by its own immune system. The most visible sign of scleroderma
is the formation of scar tissue in the skin or in the affected area which would
lead to having that area being much firmer and thicker. When scleroderma
happens to different parts of the body all at the same time, it could be
referred to as systematic sclerosis.
Systematic sclerosis can be fatal as it could result to
kidney, heart, intestinal or lung damage. The other form of sclerosis which is
known as morphea would tend not to be fatal but could cripple and affected
individual.
What Causes It?
As of now, there is no known cause for scleroderma. Some
would say that genes would play a heavy role and others would say that it is
more environmental than it is genetic. Since genes are said to play a role in
this, inheritance also has its part therefore, it would not be unusual to find
other relatives of a scleroderma patient to be later on affected with it.
Scleroderma also occurs more in females than it does on males.
Although there is no definite cause of scleroderma, there are
various theories that can be relied on in basis of scleroderma treatment. Since
it is so, every treatment for scleroderma is patient specific and are only made
to alleviate a patient for symptoms like relief from pain, cure for hardening
skin and other specific symptoms. Hardening of the skin has been treated many
times successfully with the use of PUVA, d-penicllamine and cyclosporine.
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