What disease causes skin hardening?

What disease causes skin hardening?

Scleroderma (sklair-oh-DUR-muh) is a group of rare diseases that involve the hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues. Scleroderma affects women more often than men and most commonly occurs between the ages of 30 and 50.

What were your first symptoms of scleroderma?

Symptoms of scleroderma may include:

• Thickening and swelling of the fingers.
• Pale fingers that may become numb and tingle when exposed to cold or stress, known as Raynaud’s phenomenon.
• Joint pain.
• Taut, shiny, darker skin on large areas, which can cause problems with movement.

What disease causes hardening of the organs?

Scleroderma is an autoimmune, rheumatic, and chronic disease that affects the body by hardening connective tissue. (“Connective tissue” is widespread. It adds strength to organs and other parts of the body.) Connective tissue is made of many kinds of proteins.

What autoimmune disease causes extreme fatigue?

Profound and debilitating fatigue is the most common complaint reported among individuals with autoimmune disease, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and rheumatoid arthritis.

What can mimic scleroderma?

However, similar features of hard and thick skin can be seen in other conditions which are often referred to as “scleroderma mimics”. These mimics include eosinophilic fasciitis, nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, scleromyxedema, and scleredema among others.

Why is my skin thickening?

When you continually scratch an area of skin or it is rubbed for a prolonged period of time, your skin cells begin to grow. This leads to a thickening of the skin and an exaggeration of normal skin markings — such as cracks, wrinkles, or scales — that gives your skin a leathery or bark-like appearance.

What organs does scleroderma affect?

Although it most often affects the skin, scleroderma also can affect many other parts of the body including the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, kidneys, heart, blood vessels, muscles and joints. Scleroderma in its most severe forms can be life-threatening.

What are the symptoms of black stools and fatigue?

WebMD Symptom Checker helps you find the most common medical conditions indicated by the symptoms black (tar) colored stools and fatigue including Gastrointestinal bleeding, Medication reaction or side-effect, and Iron poisoning.

What does it mean when you have black stuff in your stomach?

Black or brown vomit may mean that you are bleeding internally. It is often called coffee ground vomitus (the partially digested blood looks like coffee grounds) and is caused by bleeding in your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Dark vomit often comes from bleeding in the stomach. It can be from several causes:

What are the signs and symptoms of gastric bleeding?

Vomiting of red, ‘fresh’ blood (hematemesis). Vomiting of ‘old’, brown to black blood which resembles coffee grounds. Presence of ‘fresh’ blood in the stool (hematochezia). Black tarry stool due to the presence of ‘old’ blood (melena).

Are there any medical conditions associated with black tar colored stools?

There are 88 conditions associated with black (tar) colored stools and fatigue. The links below will provide you with more detailed information on these medical conditions from the WebMD Symptom Checker and help provide a better understanding of causes and treatment of these related conditions. Think you might have any of these?