INSIDE JIA
INSIDE JIA
INSIDE JIA
INSIDE JIA
INSIDE JIA

Presented by UCAN

The Basics

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis, JIA for short, is a type of arthritis that affects children and teens.

JIA causes inflammation in your joints, making it difficult or painful to move different parts of your body. Any joint can be affected. 

To start, let's go over what makes up a joint in the first place.

Figure 1. Parts of the Joint
Joints are where two bones meet.

Each joint in your body is made up of 4 key components.
1
Bones

Hard material that provides structure and support for your body

2
Cartilage

Covers the ends of the bones and acts as cushion

3
Joint Fluid

Thick liquid that lubricates your joints to help them move smoothly

4
Synovium

Contains blood vessels and produces the joint fluid

In JIA, joints become inflamed because of changes in the immune system.

Signs of an inflamed joint include....

Heat
Redness
Swelling
Pain

So what does the immune system have to do with this?

Role of the immune system

In order to understand the role of the immune system in JIA, we first have to understand how the immune system is designed to work.

Figure 2. Immune System
1
Inside the Blood Vessel

Your immune system is a very important part of your body. It acts as your body's personal army.

2
Activated

The immune system is activated whenever it senses potential dangerous triggers in the environment. 

3
Locates

Once activated, your immune system travels to the site of danger and causes inflammation.

4
Know Thyself

One of the most important jobs of the immune system is to know the difference between “self” (parts of your own body) and “non-self” (viruses, bacteria, cancer cells, among other things). Instead of “non-self,” we will refer to these as “invaders.”

In JIA, your immune system gets confused and starts to attack and damage parts of your own body, even when there is no real danger.

When your immune system attacks your joints, causing inflammation, this is what we call arthritis. 

Although we are still learning exactly why the immune system gets confused and causes arthritis, we have many medications to help control the inflammation.

In general, these medications work by calming down the immune system.

Treatments for JIA

The main types of JIA medications are NSAIDS, corticosteroids, DMARDs, and biologics.

NSAIDS

Decreases certain chemicals that cause inflammation. They help reduce pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints.

DMARDS

Short for disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs. DMARDs are medicines that either suppress the immune system or change the way the immune system works to decrease inflammation.

Steroids

Corticosteroids also decrease inflammation by blocking the same chemicals as NSAIDs and by acting on white blood cells that produce cytokines.

Biologics

Biologic medicines are targeted medicines that block specific molecules in your immune system from doing their job.

These medications all act in different ways to decrease the activity of the immune system to reduce inflammation.

Although we know how these medications work, people may experience different responses to the same medication. 

Doctors and scientists are still trying to understand these personal differences to develop a better strategy to give the medication that works best for you.


UCAN

Learn more about this research