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Christine M: Morphea

During the summer of eighth grade, I started to notice a weird reddish/white film covering part of my left leg by the knee. I did not know what it was and my parents took me to see the doctor. He told us that it was not a problem and that it would clear up in a few weeks. Well, it did not clear up and only got worse.

The lesion started to turn a dark brown and started to spread over my knee. Only then did my doctor tell me to see a dermatologist who did a punch biopsy and found out that I had morphea.

I am eighteen years old now and since then I have been put on many medications and none of them have worked. They only succeeded to cause many kidney infections and a lot of wasted money for my parents.

The morphea has now spread across my entire left leg and part of my right thigh and on both arms and shoulders. I have recently found new spots under my left breast and it does not seem to want to stop. My doctors do not know what to do anymore and that is the scary part for me.

This disease has changed my life greatly and there are many times when I feel like I am all alone and no one else understands what I am going through. Basically, I guess I am just looking for someone to talk to who is going through the same thing. If you know of anyone please have them contact me. Thank you very much.

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ISN Artist: Sherrill Knaggs (In Loving Memory)

Sherrill Knaggs, ISN Artist, created the digital photo to illustrate the story on this page. Sherrill lived in New Zealand. Her story was featured in ISN's book, Voices of Scleroderma Volume 2.

ISN Story Editor: Judith Thompson Devlin

Judith Thompson Devlin is the ISN Story Editor for this story. She is also lead editor of the ISN's wonderful Voices of Scleroderma book series!

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