Manila, Feb. 28 -- In February 2013, while having a long-overdue dinner with her dear friend from med school, pediatrician Feleneta Villegas instinctively placed her fingers on her right wrist.

Feeling for her pulse, she noticed that it was beating rather faintly.

Her friend, who was now a cardiologist interventionist, casually suggested that she should get a Doppler scan to assess the blood flow in her arms.

Barely a month later, Villegas received the news no doctor ever wants to hear: she has Takayasu arteritis (TAK), a rare autoimmune disease that causes inflammation of the blood vessels, damaging the body's largest arteries.

Dubbed the "pulseless disease," the condition affects only one in a million people each year and has a pred...