What is Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis? My story.

'Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in your joints. The main symptoms are joint pain and swelling.' Rheumatoid arthritis, at least for me, is essentially where your immune system attacks the joints in your body.

To put it mildly that is the main definition when it comes to arthritis. But for me

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is so much more than joint pain and swelling.  

Only old people get arthritis right? That is definitely what I thought, having arthritis at a young age never even crossed my mind until I was diagnosed at age 14. When I was diagnosed I didn't (was not informed, but that is a whole other different story) understand the severity of Rheumatoid arthritis, I didn't even know it was called a disease! For around 6 months my joints started to swell, beginning at my knees and rapidly spreading to every joint in my body. For months I put up with the pain until it became so unbearable I couldn't even get out of bed.. But I reluctantly I mean finally made a doctors appointment. 

At my doctors appointment not a lot was said but I was quickly referred to a rheumatologist where I was given my diagnosis. Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA for short). I was put on Predisolone, Methotrexate and Naproxen. For a long time I thought that after taking these for a long period of time I would be cured, little did I know that this was going to effect me for the rest of my life.

Around 3 years later, yep 3 years I eventually found out the severity of my disease and the risks of the medication I was taking, by googling it :). It. Was. Terrifying. I felt angry that nobody had told me about the severity and how it would effect me for the rest of my life. I felt so alone, I was jealous of everybody because they didn't have the condition and truth be told, jealousy is still something I struggle with now. The joints in my fingers are by far the worst effected and I struggle to do every day tasks, like opening drinks or lifting the kettle. 
The future still scares me but I have made a lot of changes to my lifestyle to try and help with my arthritis and maybe one day go into remission.

I'm not going to go to much into my diet and exercise regime as I want to write another blog post which has a lot more detail but I workout every single day(unless I'm having a really bad flare which then I stay in bed and eat as much as humanly possible, don't we all have those days?). I recently discovered that diet is a major factor in autoimmune diseases and some people claim that remission can be achieved by certain diets. For a couple of months I have been vegan, cutting out any meat, fish and dairy products and in the past couple of days I have switched to only eating a vegan diet and cutting out gluten as well. Honestly I can not tell if it's the diet or medication that is helping but right now I will do just about anything to try and go into remission.

The thing I wish more than anything was that I was told about the natural ways of healing years ago. If anyone can take anything from my story is too look into other ways of helping your arthritis and don't just believe what your doctor tells you, sure if medication works for you then that is great but there are other ways that can help too.

Having juvenile arthritis is tough, I'm so unsure of what the future will bring and that is mainly why I created this blog so I can share my story, what I do to cope and maybe even connect to other people that are struggling with any form of arthritis. Having juvenile arthritis and having to adapt my entire lifestyle to fit into this disease is so challenging but it's shown me strength that I never knew or even thought I had.