For Patients: What is your diagnosis? This will be used for labeling and categorizing the stories, and will appear on your story page. Examples: Diffuse Scleroderma, Limited, Morphea, Linear, CREST, CTD, UCTD, MCTD, Overlap, Diffuse with CREST, Raynaud's, undiagnosed, Pulmonary Fibrosis, Lupus plus possible Scleroderma.
In your story, you can include all your diagnoses if you want. Just list the "main" thing(s) in this box. Remember, you may submit changes at any time, should your diagnosis change.
The primary purpose of our stories is to render emotional support and comfort with others who may find comfort in seeing how we have coped, and not to give specific reference to our medications or treatments, which can be found on our medical pages. If you advocate one particular still-unproven remedy, the best place to post your story is on a website that singularly promotes that remedy, or to just refer to it as "medication" and not by type or brand name.
We also avoid spiritual or political references since we serve a diverse, worldwide community. Using generic terms such as "My faith sustains me," or "I am very involved in politics," helps us convey the importance of our beliefs in this unique international forum, without raising anyone's ire. This helps us focus on what we have most in common, which is how we are coping with scleroderma or related illnesses. You can also just write what you want, and let our editors figure out the best way to convey your general intent.
For Caregivers/Friends/Survivors : Enter a description such as "Spouse of a Diffuse Scleroderma Patient", "Caregiver for Morphea Patient", "Mother of Linear Scleroderma Patient", "Widower of Scleroderma Patient," or "Surviving Friend of MCTD Patient."
Diagnosis or Relationship
|