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| Richard and his daughter Trinity, who suffers from JIA |
I’m so pleased
today to be able to feature a guest post on my blog. I’m not sure how many
years it is that I’ve known Rebecca from The Beesley Buzz blog, but it is
a quite a number, and she is one of those women who never fails to inspire and
have an encouraging word for everyone. Back in 2015 she discovered that her young
daughter had Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis and it has been harrowing to see
what Trinity must go through to be able to live a (more) normal and pain reduced
life.
I was so excited
to hear from Rebecca back in January this year that her husband was taking an
exciting (and of course scary) step by starting the Juvenile Arthritis Research
project. Richard is doing something incredible to make a difference to the
lives of children who suffer from JIA and I’m delighted to have him share with
you here today. Really, did you even know that children could suffer from
arthritis? I certainly didn’t.
What is Juvenile Idiopathic
Arthritis (or JIA)?
JIA is diagnosed
in children and young people under the age of 16 and is a different disease to
adult-onset rheumatoid arthritis, and entirely different from age-related
osteoarthritis. The term ‘idiopathic’ means that, despite a number of theories,
the exact cause of JIA is currently unknown.
Many people are
not even aware that children can get arthritis. Yet JIA affects around 15,000
children under the age of 16 in the UK. At present, there is no cure.
JIA is an
autoimmune disorder where the body starts to attack the joints, causing
inflammation, pain, discomfort and reduced mobility. Left unchecked, JIA can lead
to other health conditions as the immune system attacks other organs, as well
as permanent disability and long-term health implications. Many children with
JIA suffer from uveitis, where the immune system attacks the eyes; if not
stopped this can lead to permanent vision loss and blindness. Some forms of JIA
lead to systemic inflammatory damage, where other organs are damaged and, in
the most severe forms, this can be fatal.
I founded
Juvenile Arthritis Research (JAR) to find a cure for Juvenile Arthritis. With
the support and endorsement of leading academic researchers, the JAR project
works collaboratively yet independently to analyse data and information from a
wide range of different scientific disciplines and research fields. By bringing
together the disparate sources of information, we believe that we will be able
to piece together the clues necessary to fully understand the disorder and
develop a cure.