My dear mother has been suffering from scleroderma for the past ten years. When I was a small boy, my mother's fingers would turn blue. This was more noticeable during winter when it was cold.

She consulted all the specialists in the town where we were living, but none of the doctors diagnosed it as scleroderma or Raynaud's phenomenon.

In 1997, I secured a seat in a medical college in Hyderabad and enrolled for the MBBS degree course. I then took my mother to meet Dr. Narasimhalu in Rheumatology at Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in Hyderabad. The doctor advised my mother to test for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

When we received the report, it showed the presence of SSA and SSB autoantibodies, and then my mother was diagnosed with scleroderma. My mother's symptoms include Raynaud's Phenomenon (RP), digital infarcts, dyspnoea (breathlessness) and slight fever.

In one year, she has been treated for these symptoms and they are under control. Many patients are undiagnosed or diagnosed very late. I am writing this story so that people will know that they have to approach the right specialist, as early as possible, and obtain the appropriate treatment.