Some grew up in the neighborhood and moved out after getting married while most are life-long residents. Factoring in the real estate boom over the past few years, roughly half of South Boston's population of about 35,000 are people new to the neighborhood. Using just the number of residents who have lived in the neighborhood for a long period of time, the ratios show that scleroderma is having much more of a profound affect on the community. While a cluster of scleroderma cases is planted through out the neighborhood, many people don't know the symptoms and the facts behind one of the South Boston most deadly disease. Sleroderma, which about 80 percent of the cases nationwide are women, comes in two forms - limited and systemic.
People can live with the limited form despite it hardening and tightening the skin.
The latter is what Lombard and most others inflicted with - affecting not only the skin but internal organs. Scleroderma normally begins with Raynaud's phenomenon - the fingers and toes lose circulation and turn white upon exposure to cold. These symptoms are what cause common mistakes in diagnosing a patient with rheumatoid arthritis - something that doctors thought Lombard had before receiving the correct one in 1996. Later the skin becomes hard, shiny, and leathery. In later stages, severe fibrosis of the skin, especially in the fingers and hands, can cause significant disability.