Scleroderma, the tough skin disease

It is one of the most well-known autoimmune diseases, characterized by the strengthening of the skin. Depending on the degree, it is classified as limited or verbose systemic sclerosis and sometimes affects other tissues, such as the lungs, kidneys, heart, and digestive system. As a discriminator, scleroderma occurs when the immune system incorrectly attacks healthy tissue in the body, causing collagen to break down. Patients suffer from an overrun of this protein, which causes tightening of the skin, as well as inflammation of certain parts of the body. This causes damage to structures and joins .

Scleroderma is more common in women among the ages of XXX and fifty and affects, according to the Spanish Culture of Rheumatology, one in 50,000 people .

Although the origin is still unidentified, it is known that certain environmental factors favor it, such as exposure to silica - for sample, in withdrawal and blasting activities - and to certain drugs .

The progression of the sickness may be more or less rapid depending on the degree of damage, and the symptoms vary from person to person. Almost all patients present with the so-called Raynaud phenomenon, in which the fingers change color in response to cold. About have only a few manifestations, while others quickly suffer from various symptoms. Nevertheless, it is normal that the first observed are narrowing and hardening of blood vessels, fibrosis or strengthening of tissues and organs of the body (due to increased production of collagen) and, in some cases, also a connective tissue disease - a disease that affects the connective tissue of the body. On the other hand, when diagnosed, serum antibodies are usually found - substances that react against their own cells or proteins in the body .

No known treatment

According to the American College of Rheumatology, "there is no clear drug that stops or reverses the main symptom of thickening and strengthening of the skin" and only drugs that have been exposed to be very useful in the treatment of other diseases. autoimmune are generally, like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, "usually not working in people with scleroderma", so in this disease it is normal to seek to reduce individual symptoms and prevent further complications, "with a combination of medication and personal care" 

Indeed, rheumatologists want to avoid certain factors known to worsen the disease, such as exposure to cold, as Patricia Carreira, rheumatologist at the University Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, points out. To this he adds smoking cessation, because "tobacco causes a contraction of the arteries which carry blood to the fingers and therefore aggravates Raynaud's phenomenon" and avoids situations which cause stress or anxiety: "He also been shown to increase the contraction of the arteries that bring blood to the finger, ”concludes Dr. Carreira.