Scleroderma

For a lay person:

Scleroderma (systemic sclerosis) is an autoimmune disease that causes thickening and hardening of the skin and can affect the blood vessels, lungs, heart, kidneys and gut.

For a trained medical person:

Limited and diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis with Raynaud's, skin fibrosis and organ involvement (interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, renal crisis). Management is organ-specific with immunosuppression.

In Chinese medicine:

Flaws and Sionneau's textbook differentiates this condition into these patterns: Wind cold mixed with qi deficiency, liver depression and blood stasis; Alternating cold and heat, liver depression and blood stasis; Spleen-kidney yang deficiency with cold congealing in the interstices; Lung-kidney deficiency with blood stasis. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.

When to get help: Get urgent care for new breathlessness or a sudden rise in blood pressure.