Is it alright that i am not taking my child to the doctors. She is 12 yrs old and is suffering with some form of arthritis? She used to walk with a limp at the age of 7, so the dr sent her straight to the hospital, once there we saw a horrible male dr who was overworked and overtired, he had no patience or an ounce of love in his whole body. He was really rough with my child and shouted in her face, my child is also Autistic and he has put her off for life, she is terrified of drs and hospitals. He tried to hold her down to get a blood test and wrestled with her and kept shouting, in the end i took her home, he then shouted at me as well. He did say she has a form of arthritis but i cannot remember what type ( it was not juvenile/chronic) there is no notes in her drs file. but as he didnt get a blood test i dont have a confirmed diagnosis. Now she is 12 yrs old and her legs are really playing her up, painful, and throbbing, and today she feels ill in herself so that is often a sign she is going down with something? I find that sometimes she gets a rash with her arthritis (possibly stills disease??) and if she gets any virus her arthritus plays up. At the end of the day does it matter that i am treating her with anti inflamotorys at home, she then gets better. Is this ok. There is no way i would get her near a hospital and no way on this earth would she have a blood test, she hates the words 'blood, needle, veins etc and also she cannot cope with the magic cream that numbs the skin, her autism makes her senses so heightened.

Hello there i am 17 and am diagnosed as having still's disease which is a type of JRA, the doctor you went and saw did not handle that situation well at all and not all doctors are like that, I recomend that you go and see a rhuematologist like i do, as you said she has not been diagnosed as having anything because there is no blood test, and i am sure the pain is bad for her as i know how she feels, but i really do recomend you go to the doctor as i had said because before i was diagnosed as having JRA, the pain was so horrible i mean walking was just so hard to do, and i had no grip at all because my hands hurt so bad, then i finally went to the rhuematologist and he said i had JRA, and he put me on medication called prednisone which is a very strong medicine, and there was a huge i mean huge difference, now im on a medicine called plaquenil which is a slow acting medicine, and im now cutting back slowly on the prednisone. And im telling you there is a huge difference, no im not 100% yet but i can walk and do things now, and b4 i had the medicine all i wanted to do is sleep and just do nothing because i couldnt, I really do recomend that you go and see another doctor, I know she doesnt like them or hospitals or blood or ne thing, i cant stand it either, but i knew it had to be done, i just hope she can understand that and i hope she improves.

Part of being a parent is doing what is best for your child, even if the child doesn't like it. I understand that autism casts a different shadow on your situation, but if she has RA or some other inflammatory arthritis that can cause permanent damage, she needs to be under treatment with a DMARD. Contact your insurance company and get their recommendation on a pediatric rheumatologist. That's who your daughter really needs to see.