Our speaker was Sally Bell, B SC. Pharm., Rheumatology Pharmacist, St Joseph's Hospital. Sally gave a very informative talk on the various pharmaceuticals used in the treatment of Raynaud's and GERT, two of the more common manifestations occurring in scleroderma patients.
I learned a lot but a couple of things stick out in my mind, both of which might be helpful to readers of this blog so I'll share them. The first concerns diet which is an important factor in conjunction with medications for controlling reflux. The fact that surprised me though is that high fibre diets, something we hear about frequently these days, is not always a good idea for scleroderma patients, in fact it can be counter productive. I did a little research and there is some evidence that a high fibre diet in patients with scleroderma can actually cause severe constipation or bowel obstruction. So beware.
Another interesting discussion centred around calcinosis. Someone brought up using salt water to ease the skin eruptions which can accompany calcinosis and one of our members, Jill, informed us that this has been very helpful in her case but that one should avoid using table salt containing iodine which can further irritate the area. Instead, she recommends pickling salt which has no iodine. She suggested using approximately one tablespoon of pickling salt per gallon of water. So there you have it.
Our next meeting will be on September 26, 2009 at which time we will be hosting the AGM of the SSO. Dr. Janet Pope will be our speaker.
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