If this occurs, exercise must be stopped and steroid therapy may be used. Lung fibrosis is also common. Fibrosis of the heart can cause abnormalities in the heart rhythm, or heart failure Autoimmune . Autoimmune disease occurs when the immune system, which is geared to attack foreign particles such as viruses and bacteria, attacks the body's own cells. Although both scleroderma and rheumatoid arthritis are autoimmune diseases and may overlap, joint pain in scleroderma, unlike that in rheumatoid arthritis, is thought to result primarily from contraction of the skin, which restricts motion.
Exercise is the most important therapy.
The cause of scleroderma is not known. It is known, however, to arise in response to certain environmental exposures such as silica dust. Other causes have been suggested, including elevated levels of nitric oxide and impaired response to stresses on the skin. One area of interest results from the finding that scleroderma patients tend to have a high number of foreign cells in their bodies. These cells most commonly arise from two-way transfer between a mother and her fetus, resulting in the appearance of fetal cells in the mother and maternal cells in the child.