Category Archives: Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

Professional Patient

We like to call Capri our professional patient, and once again we were off to a doctor appointment for her. With her Juvenile Arthritis she has to have her eyes checked every few months to look for inflammation. When we were at her last appointment they noticed that her left eye was weaker, and we confirmed that we noticed that it drifts inward a lot. So todays visit was to make sure there was no inflammation (which there was not), and to test her eyes for amblyopia or what most people call lazy eye. I was diagnosed with it when I was around 6 years old and am almost legally blind in my right eye.

One of the greatest things about Capri is how well she does for doctors. Even though she was very crazy and did not listen very well for me today, as soon as the doctor would enter the room she was the perfect patient. She sat on my lap and allowed them to shine lights in her eyes, and she followed the instructions very well. Dr. Alex even had her eyes measured because she was so good and he knew that she would sit still for it. We always get compliments on how great she does from getting x-rays, blood drawn, pokes, and just all the different things that come along with going to the doctors a lot. For this I am extremely thankful.

Our eye doctor that we have to see for her is a little over an hour away and both kids did great (only a few short meltdowns). Capri was officially diagnosed with amblyopia today and once we get her glasses this weekend she will have to wear a patch for a few weeks on her good eye.

I won’t lie, I hated wearing a patch when I was a kid. It was black and ugly, and I would lift it up so I could read or see the TV better (no wonder my eye is still bad). Thankfully they now have cute and fun stick on patches that hopefully will help her leave it on, since it must be worn ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. And thankfully she was diagnosed a lot younger than I was which will give her a better chance at strengthening her eye.

I will post a little update once she gets her glasses so you can see how cute and hipster she is.

Going Cold Turkey

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In the car for another trip (we have had a lot of trips in the last few weeks). Todays trip was to Halifax to go to the IWK children’s hospital for Capri’s follow up appointment after her joint injection.

We went a bit early so we could go to the mall and pick up a few things and grab lunch. Also great parenting moment of the day – Capri ate some form of french fry at all 3 meals today. So after that we headed into the city to see Dr. Huber.

We hung out in the waiting room for a bit and Capri ate a ton of crackers and flirted with the little boy that was also waiting. We got called in and she was weighed and measured and sat nice and still while they took her blood pressure with the a tiny little cuff.

We went into our exam room and Dr. Huber came in and checked Capri over. He said her knee is looking really good – even with all the bruising which her Naproxen can make worse (she is super clumsy and has a ton of bruises). He did notice that one of her toes seems a bit inflamed but did not seem concerned about it.

The decision was made to take Capri off of her naproxen to see how she does. After that we waited to see CJ who does Capri’s physio. Capri got slightly bored and started climbing into her stroller basket and being super silly. We were laughing so hard. CJ came and worked with Capri and gave us a few more things to do with her at home.

So overall it was a good visit and we go back in December for a follow up to see how she is doing. So after a quick supper at my parents house we headed home. And it was a very pretty view on the way home.

Mom’s Kisses

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I would like to talk about this product that we have been using for the last couple of weeks, it is called Mom’s Kisses. If you have been reading my blog for a while now you know that we found out in July that our oldest daughter has Juvenile Arthritis, she is on medication to help with her inflammation but sometimes that is not enough. I found out about Mom’s Kisses through Bundles and Buzz and decided to contact the founder of the company to find out if it would help with Capri’s inflammation. Teresa was kind enough to send me a bottle of her product and a travel bottle to keep in the our diaper bag.

Teresa founded Mom’s Kisses to help her daughter deal with pain from everyday bumps and bruises because her daughter cannot take ibuprofen due to kidney problems. This topical spray can help heal bruises and sprains faster and is all natural. The product is made from the flowerheads of the Arnica montana flower, which is an anti-inflammatory. it also has ethyl alcohol; distilled water & essential oil of lavender for the soothing smell. Which is great because the less medication I have to put into my little girls body the better. Capri is not super vocal so I am not sure how much it has helped her, but I have used it a few times on sore muscles and it really does seem to help with the pain, I have also used it on Capri’s legs not only for her inflammation but for her bruises and they disappeared within a couple of days instead of a week or more. This is a great product to have in the house and in your purse/diaper bag especially if your kids play sports.

Capri loves spraying it on her legs and rubbing it in. As she becomes more vocal I will be interested to see what she has to say about it. We are going to keep using it, because I really do feel like it is working and it is a great alternative to giving her other pain medications when her current prescriptions are not enough.

I also love that it is a Canadian company and that a mom made it to help her own daughter.

So I want to thank Teresa for letting us have a chance to try out her product. You can read more on her website

Steroids, Needles, and Sleeping Gas

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Last month we found out that Capri had Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). She started on a medication called Naproxen that she takes twice a day. Thankfully we have a really strange kid who loves taking medicine, we actually are able to get her to eat more of her meals by saying she can’t have her meds until she has a few more bites.

Unfortunately most kids with JIA need more than just oral medication to help their JIA so yesterday we went into the IWK Children’s Hospital for Capri’s first steroid injection into her knee. This was kind of scary because she had to be put out with sleeping gas. But I am getting ahead of myself. She had to stop eating at midnight the night before and could only have clear liquids until 8am that morning. She doesn’t get juice normally so we let her have apple juice and she drank 2.5 juice boxes in 1 hour.

We first got to the hospital and our awesome rheumatologist Dr. Huber took a look at Capri to make sure her other joints were still doing good, and thank God they are. Her Naproxen has done a great job with her knee and she can bend it, but she still cannot fully extend it. After we saw Dr. Huber we went and waited in the waiting room where she was able to play with toys, and during that time she also was weighed, measured and had her vitals checked.

The nurse wanted to listen to her breathing because Capri was a bit stuffed up but she was okay enough to still have her procedure (which is good because it is a 2 hour drive for us to get to the hospital). We also met a little girl who has had JIA for 10 years and was also getting a joint injection that day. She said it was something she got used to and it was not very bad. It was really good meeting her and seeing a healthy and active 12 year old.

They took Capri back to the room and Stefan was allowed to go with her while they put her out. They said that most kids her age cry and scream with the mask and asked Stefan to hold her down. Stefan held her hand and told her she had to lay still so that is what she did. The doctor commented that he couldn’t tell when she was out because she was not doing anything and they actually had to close her eyes when they realized she was out. After that Stefan had to come back out with me and we waited until they called us.

As soon as she started to wake up they brought her out to us and we were able to hold her and spend some time in recovery while she woke up. She was allowed some more apple juice and then we went down to see our physiotherapist CJ. She said that we could start back up with her physio at home on Saturday. So we left the hospital and are now back home. For 48 hours she is not supposed to do a lot so that the medication will stay in her joint. Dr. Huber said it is not imperative that she stays perfectly still because she is 2 and that won’t happen. So we have been doing our best to doing activities and watch some movies.