Word! Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis

Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis

Say: JOO-veh-nyle ROO-muh-toyd ar-THRY-tis

Have you ever been called a juvenile? It's actually not an insult — it just means that you're a kid.

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, or JRA, is called that because it's different from the arthritis that adults get. Arthritis causes pain and swelling of the joints. JRA makes it hard for kids who have it to move their joints. JRA is an autoimmune disease. That means the immune system attacks healthy cells by mistake. Kids with JRA take medicine and need to keep their joints moving.