Symptoms of scleroderma, three most common symptoms

Scleroderma is a skin disease. If you suffer from this disease, you are likely to experience muscle weakness and diffuse pain. Your bones and joints will also have a series of symptoms. In addition, your internal organs may also have problems.

1. Muscle involvement is not uncommon, and symptoms include muscle weakness and diffuse pain. Some cases may have clinical manifestations similar to those of myositis, and those with obvious muscle involvement may suffer from muscular atrophy.

2. Bones and joints: About 12% of patients first experience redness, swelling and pain in the joints, while 46% develop joint changes during the course of the disease, with symptoms ranging from mild restricted movement to joint stiffness and contracture deformity. Changes in the hands are most common, with fingers becoming completely stiff or shortened and deformed. Absorption of the phalangeal bones may appear as a truncation.

3. Internal organs: ① Digestive system: The movement of the tongue may be restricted due to frenulum contracture, and the teeth become loose due to apical absorption. Esophageal involvement is quite common (45% to 90%), manifested as difficulty in swallowing, often accompanied by vomiting, fullness or burning pain behind the sternum or in the upper abdomen (due to reflux esophagitis). Gastrointestinal involvement may cause loss of appetite, abdominal pain, bloating, alternating diarrhea and constipation, etc.

②Cardiovascular system: About 61% of patients have varying degrees of heart involvement. Myocarditis, pericarditis, or endocarditis may occur. The clinical manifestations are shortness of breath, chest tightness, angina pectoris and arrhythmias. Severe cases can lead to left heart or total heart failure (right heart failure may also be caused by cor pulmonale due to lung damage), and even sudden cardiac death. Abnormal electrocardiogram;

③ Respiratory system: When the lungs are affected, extensive pulmonary interstitial fibrosis and decreased vital capacity may occur, with clinical manifestations of cough and progressive dyspnea;

④ Urinary system: Kidney involvement accounts for about 75%, and sclerosing glomerulitis may occur, chronic proteinuria, hypertension and azotemia may occur, and in severe cases, acute renal failure may occur;

⑤ Neuropsychiatric system: A few cases have multiple neuritis (including cranial nerves), convulsions, epileptic seizures, personality changes, cerebral vascular sclerosis, cerebral hemorrhage, increased protein in cerebrospinal fluid and abnormal electroencephalogram.

4. Other symptoms may include Raynaud's phenomenon (mostly occurring in the extremities); calcium deposits in the soft tissue around the fingers or other joints or in the extensor side of the limbs; some cases have systemic symptoms such as intermittent irregular fever, fatigue and weight loss during the active period of the disease. Some scholars call calcium deposition, Raynaud's phenomenon, acrosclerosis and telangiectasia CRST syndrome, and those with esophageal involvement CREST syndrome, which is considered to be a subtype of systemic sclerosis with a better prognosis.