July is Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month, so if you assume that arthritis only affects people in later life because of wear and tear; think again because this chronic condition can develop in people of all ages.
Arthritis is a painful condition that causes pain in your joints such as your hands, knees, and elbows. It usually affects older people because as we age the protective fluid around our joints dries up and causes the bones to rub together when they come into contact with each other.
Juvenile arthritis by contrast describes a range of conditions which causes the same pain, swelling and stiffness but is most usually caused by an autoimmune condition such as Lupus rather than wear and tear. An autoimmune disease is where your body‘s immune system, which is there to protect you from diseases, mistakenly attacks healthy cells and tissue.
Juvenile arthritis affects young people and children. It affects around 300,00 teens and children in the U.S. and is a challenging and painful condition for everyone affected.
Managing your child’s juvenile arthritis is not easy but the NIH offers the following advice.
- Make sure your child is receiving the best care possible. A paediatric rheumatologist is the specialist you need to handle your child’s condition. It is important to push for obtaining a consultation with such a professional so that even if you only have a consultation once a year, you can be confident that the health of your child is in safe hands. A paediatric rheumatologist will be able to advise you on the best specialist in your area if this service is not available locally.
- Learn as much as you can about your child’s condition in order to find the best treatment options.
- Join a support group. You may find that finding other parents and kids going through the same experience will help you feel less alone.
- Encourage physical therapy. Exercise and physical therapy can keep the joints flexible as well as being enjoyable for your child.
- Try to speak to your child about the condition and treat him or her as normally as possible.
Juvenile arthritis is a painful condition so for day to day management of this condition, a supplement that provides pain relief will help. Jadience Arthritis Pain Relief is a herbal gel that is excellent for alleviating the pain of arthritis. It contains a range of natural herbal extracts including camphor and provides a natural way of pain relief which is safe for even young children to use.
Jadience Herbal Formulas are based on traditional oriental medicine so come backed by hundreds of years of research into many health conditions.