It was Christmas 1999 when I got bitten by a cat, by January 2000, everything started, the joint pains, the persistent fever, and the swollen lymph glands. Orlando has no pediatric rheumatologists so absolutely nobody had the slightest clue what might be happening to...
Prior to becoming unwell in 2004 I was healthy, fit, full of beans and studying Outdoor Education at University with the career ambition to become an adventure therapist (working with young people in an outdoor environment to help support them through difficult times...
Hi! I'm Jordan and I'm an I.T. Technician from Alberta, Canada. I was 21 years old when my world quite literally changed overnight. Up until that point I had been completely healthy, and had never experienced anything other than a common cold. I distinctly remember...
I started experiencing issues with chronic joint pain in my teens. I’m 31, and was 29 when I got my diagnosis. I lived through my early 20s with so many doctors and people telling me I was way too young to have the joint pain and stiffness that I had. They thought I...
In April 2017, my boyfriend of six years proposed to me in our apartment and we started to plan our wedding for the next August. Just a few weeks later, I graduated from Luther College in Iowa and took my board exams to become a Medical Laboratory Scientist. We were...
Hi my names Chlo ever since I was young I’ve had disabilities as mentioned above but not chronic pain. When I was 10 years old we went to see my regular paediatrician as I was having verbal and motor ticks and got a lot of joint and muscle pain which we put down to...
I started experiencing bone pain at a pretty young age, I was 3 when I started complaining about it in my left leg, however my parents brushed it off as growing pains. As I got older the pain worsened until we finally went to hospital after hospital for an explanation...
A viral infection; sore throat, loss of appetite, fever and weakness. Nothing abnormal and something an incredibly fit and active 15 year old could and should have overcome easily. After 3 weeks of noticeable weight loss and decrease in appetite, we went to the...
I was 19 when I started to not feel well. I noticed my left rib was swollen and it hurt extremely bad and was so sensitive to the the touch. My dr took some blood work and said my ANA level was high and so I was sent to the U of U hospital. They diagnosed me with...