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 Hello,
I'm writing this story on behalf of my mother, who is not very good at using a
computer. Her disease was diagnosed in May 1998, but the symptoms were already
present a long time before that. Her hands were affected at the very beginning,
and no longer had the same elasticity and started to become white, cold and, above
all, stiff in their movement.
Then the disease extended to
other parts of the body, always involving the skin, with the formation of lesions
and hardening of the skin. Afterwards she developed other classic manifestations
of the disease including gastroesophageal
reflux and widespread pain that have required a special diet as well as the
use of numerous drugs like steroids. Currently my mother is
seen regularly at the Department of Rheumatology in the University Clinic in Padua.
Over and above the classic symptoms of the disease, she now also has renal
problems due to scleroderma. She suffers from recurrent bouts of gastric reflux,
mostly at night, that cause terrible pain, and also has fever associated with
breathing difficulties as
well as a very intense feeling of abdominal bloating. Furthermore, there is a
hardening of the skin to such
an extent that taking blood is hardly possible, together with a loss of strength
and general fatigue. At this point I'll stop because maybe
I can't be precise enough, but anyway in less than two years my mother's life
has totally changed for the worse, really the worse. Then reading the letters
published by you from other people, I found out that their symptoms and medications
are the same as hers. So if any of you would like to get in
touch with her, possibly to meet, or just to talk, with the intention of improving
the situation for those that find themselves having to fight this strange and
awful disease, I would be happy to put you in contact. We are hopeful of finding
someone with whom we can try to overcome the problems created by this disease
and by its drug treatments. Thank you for your attention. I
wish all the people suffering from scleroderma to be able to manage to live in
a decent manner, without having to put up with this terrible suffering and other
things that the disease unfortunately brings. Best wishes - Antonio Sabino.
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