I'm not familiar with what in scleroderma would
cause your friend's back to be red except for small,
damaged blood vessels called telangectasia. We mostly get
them on the face, palms, and inside the mouth. A lot
of them together could look like a red area, but
they look more like flat pimples.<br><br>If your
friend has had arthritis since childhood, she probably
has the inflammatory kind, rheumatoid arthritis. When
scleroderma and RA occur together, it's known as Mixed
Connective Tissue Disease. While SD can cause hardening of
skin and internal organs (at its most extreme) the
joint pains it causes are not usually damaging.
Unfortunately, RA does damage the joints, so she's really got a
tough combination.<br><br>You're wonderful to be so
concerned and wanting to be so supportive. Just know that
she'll have good days and crummy days, and it makes it
hard to plan things. Be flexible and upbeat, and help
her to stay upbeat, too. It's very easy to get
depressed about how the diseases affect you and change your
life, and from there it's really easy to give up and
become isolated.<br><br>Also help and encourage her to
keep up her doctor visits. It's important to fight the
inflammation that threatens her joints from RA and can lead to
fibrosis formation in SD. I know at 20-something, being on
daily meds was the last thing on my mind, but she needs
to be more vigilant than most
20-somethings.<br><br>My aunt has had SD since her 20's and, though it's
been an up and down trip, she's still very active 40
years later. She has raised her own family and is now
helping with her grandchildren.