Scleroderma: symptoms and causes of the disease

Scleroderma, symptoms, causes and treatment, which will be considered here, refers to chronic autoimmune diseases. It leads to thickening of the skin, deterioration of its elasticity. In addition, it can lead to damage to the internal organs, as well as to an increase in the thickness of the walls of blood vessels. Most often, women who are between thirty and fifty years old suffer from it. Men suffer from it about six times less often.

The reasons for its appearance

No one knows exactly what causes scleroderma. A forum on the Internet, a textbook on medicine or even a consulting doctor can only name exemplary circumstances in which its occurrence becomes possible. It is generally believed that its appearance and development occurs under the influence of some external factors in those people who have specific genetic disorders. External factors, which may well be the cause of its appearance, can be safely attributed to coal, as well as quartz dust, various retroviruses, medical products that are used in chemotherapy, organic solvents.

Scleroderma: symptoms

It can be calculated by specific lesions of the skin, musculoskeletal system, vessels, gastrointestinal tract, heart, lungs, and other internal organs. The whole point is that all of the above is damaged at the same time.

Scleroderma, the symptoms of which we are considering, are very often accompanied by Reynaud's syndrome, in which, under stress or under the influence of low temperatures, spasms of the skin vessels located on the fingers of the limbs periodically occur. With this syndrome, as a rule, the color of the fingers changes.

As mentioned above, with scleroderma, there is a thickening or thickening of the skin - this also applies to those symptoms that are very specific and can be easily detected. First of all, the skin begins to deteriorate on the hands, and then on the rest of the body surface. In general, it is worth noting that skin problems suffer patients with scleroderma within three to five years from the time the disease began to actively progress, as in time these lesions will remain only on their feet.

Scleroderma, the symptoms of which are numerous, can cause joint pain and stiffness in the whole body at the first stages. The muscle damage occurs a little later, and its consequence is muscle weakness.

Ninety percent of people affected by this disease suffer from problems with the gastrointestinal tract. Trouble with the esophagus begins with the fact that it becomes difficult for a person to swallow food. This problem can in some cases cause a lot of discomfort. Patients experience unpleasant sensations in the abdomen, suffer from heartburn, diarrhea, or constipation.

The lungs suffer in seventy percent of all cases. The most common problems with them in scleroderma are a persistent cough, and also shortness of breath.

Symptoms include the numerous problems that arise with the thyroid gland.

Scleroderma: treatment

In order to get rid of it, have to spend many years. As a rule, the treatment is outpatient. From drugs to the patient, corticosteroids, vasodilating agents, various aminoquinoline derivatives, and those drugs that can improve microcirculation are prescribed. In the case of a chronic disease, a person is prescribed radon and hydrogen sulphide baths (balneotherapy), and joint damage can be treated with the help of special therapeutic physical training, as well as massage.

This disease can not just be taken and cured, which means that doctors mostly struggle not with herself, but with her symptoms.