How to diagnose and manage juvenile rheumatoid arthritis?

Hello,

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I read your query and understood your concern.

I can understand that you are going through a tough time. Let me explain.

Juvenile rheumatic arthritis is diagnosed clinically by the following:

1. The onset of the disease before 16 years of age.

2. Arthritis in one or more joints (with swelling or limited movement of the joint, tenderness with movement, or heat over the joint).

3. The duration of the symptoms should be at least six weeks, and so on.

There are some laboratory tests that support the diagnosis, for example:

1. Complete blood count (low hemoglobin, increased white blood cells, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and ferritin).

2. Changes in the joint on imaging scans.

3. Autoantibodies, and an eye examination for uveitis.

4. Secondly, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is strongly suggested in this case and should be ruled out (serum anti-double-stranded DNA antibodies and renal function tests).

Autoimmune joint diseases are managed stepwise with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications. If there is no improvement, then the second option of medication should be tried according to the type of arthritis and the involved systems (as most often, they involve more than one system).

I hope you understand the points.

I hope this has helped you.

Kindly follow up if you have more doubts.

Thank you.