?I think our daughter might be a bit of a lemon,? I joked to my husband one winter afternoon. After a six week stint with a nasty case of shingles and three more weeks struggling through pneumonia, she awoke that morning complaining of pain and stiffness in her left knee. I made an appointment with her pediatrician, who took blood and an x-ray and diagnosed her with growing pains.
My daughter, Isabel, was 10 at the time. It would take two more years of her cycling through a variety of illnesses and symptoms?including vague ones like fatigue and mild rashes?plus multiple visits to physicians and urgent care clinics, for her to finally be diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA).
Juvenile Arthritis fits alongside conditions like Crohn?s Disease, cardiac diseases, diabetes, and mental illnesses into the challenging category of invisible illnesses. According to the Invisible Disabilities Association, an advocacy organization working to increase public awareness and sensitivity, an invisible illness or disability includes any ?physical, mental or neurological condition that limits a person?s movements, senses, or activities that is invisible to the onlooker.? Getting an accurate diagnosis

It is precisely the invisibility of such illnesses that makes them so difficult to diagnose. Many symptoms are not immediately apparent. ?There is always a balance between suspecting something is wrong and there really being something wrong,? explains Anne Fournier, a paediatric card...