Scleroderma Awareness Month proclaimed in San Diego
Local Foundation plans Walk for Cure
SAN DIEGO, June 12, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders has released a proclamation declaring that June is Scleroderma Awareness Month. Local leadership is working with the Scleroderma Foundation, Greater San Diego Chapter, to bring awareness and attention to this often debilitating disease. The Scleroderma Foundation hopes to raise funds to support research, awareness, and education about the disease during its annual Scleroderma Walk for Cure and family fun day event held at Shelter Island on June 24th.
All are welcome at the Walk for Cure event on June 24th. Children will be excited by crafts, music, food, inflatable jumps and slides. Walkers can participate in a 1K or a 5K non-competitive walk event. Patients may choose to walk or just enjoy the friendly and sociable atmosphere. All participants will be helping to fund the work done by the Scleroderma Foundation in an effort to find effective treatments for those with the disease.
Scleroderma is a chronic, often progressive, disease in which the immune system attacks its own body. Scleroderma literally means "hard skin." It can cause a thickening and tightening of the skin. In some cases, it causes serious damage to internal organs including the lungs, heart, kidneys, esophagus and gastrointestinal tract. As scarring, or sclerosis, of these organs and organ systems progresses, they work less effectively, and can lead to organ failure and death. Some medications and treatments can help with certain symptoms, but there is no cure for scleroderma. The disease affects over 300,000 people across the U.S.A.
Many patients and others affected by scleroderma have contributed videos to the national Walk for Cure website to mark national Scleroderma Awareness Month. One of the earliest Walk for Cure video submissions came from San Diego's Holly Hauser, a local physician and scleroderma patient with two children. Holly explained, "Most people have never heard of this disease, yet it threatens my life. I was fortunate to receive an experimental adult stem cell transplant, which has been very beneficial. However, there are few effective treatments and no known cure for this devastating disease."
SOURCE Scleroderma Foundation, Greater San Diego Chapter
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