Hi, my name is Lori. I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis when I was 5 years old. It started with a sprained ankle that was swollen and wouldn’t resolve and then a knee flying out and became swollen and wouldn’t resolve. After many doctors and 9 months of tests and bloodwork I was diagnosed by a wonderful pediatric rheumatologist in Memphis, TN. My childhood was filled with knee aspirations and aspirin therapy and hopes it would go away. It never did. I’ve always been seronegative and my doctor did such a good job of keeping the fluid out of my knees, I don’t have much joint damage. I’m thankful but it’s also caused me to struggle in finding a rheumatologist who believes me. During my adult years I’ve developed calcifications in my subcutaneous tissues that are scattered throughout my body and on X-ray it looks as if I’ve been shot with buckshot. I had a huge rheumatoid nodule removed from the bottom of my big toe but failed to get a copy of the medical report so that’s another thing I don’t feel any docs believe. I’ve had many tendon tears and one rupture just performing normal daily activities. I have a cutaneous vascular looking rash on my feet and legs and is now getting on my abdomen but doesn’t test positive for vasculitis or anything else although one biopsy showed fibrinogen but said nothing about collagen as we thought it might be cutaneous collagenous vasculopathy. The rash has evolved over about 15 years and looks horrible but doesn’t hurt or itch. It does get warm sometimes indicating (to me) inflammation. I also have multiple sclerosis and collagenous colitis and it’s difficult to treat all of them because the other problems don’t play well with the same medications. I feel very overwhelmed at times but keep on keeping on. I’m sorry this is so long but I’ve never been in a group before and have hopes someone will relate or have ideas about my conditions that could steer me toward a more complete, all encompassing diagnosis.