Jude

"He is an amazing and very strong child even though he has suffered with all that comes with JIA."

When Jude was 2, he suffered from irritated eyes and was blinking a lot. After about 6 months of seeing doctors and paediatricians, he was seen by an ophthalmologist. They diagnosed uveitis* and referred him to a rheumatologist within a week.

He was then diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and had 2 sets of joint injections within 3 days, and put on oral/eye steroids drops plus intravenous (IV) steroids. After 6 months of Methotrexate (an immunosuppressant medication) we were told it wasn’t sufficient on its own and added Humira (a biologic drug) to combat the Uveitis, which had since left slight scarring in Jude’s left eye.

Jude has since been very settled on both Methotrexate and Humira but unfortunately has felt more side effects recently so the doctors have tried a reduction of Methotrexate with the aim of eventually removing it completely.

We await to see the impacts, but so far Jude has continued his mountain bike riding which he has done throughout since he was 2 years old, plus he recently starting boxing. He is an amazing and very strong child even though he has suffered with all that comes with JIA.

* Uveitis is inflammation inside the eye, which affects around 1 in 5 children with JIA. You can find out more about uveitis here.

You can find out more about Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis here.

If you are concerned that a child or young person may have JIA and would like to know more, please visit www.thinkjia.org