Category: juvenile arthritis

A parent baking with a child. Text on the image reads "Kids get rheumatic disease, too."

2026 Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month Spotlights Early Diagnosis in Children

Posted on by Grayson

Below is a press release from ACR dated 9/1/26.

Atlanta— September 1, 2026 — In recognition of Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month (RDAM), the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) is launching its 2026 awareness campaign: “Little Joints, Big Impact: Pediatric Rheumatology Awareness Leads to Early Diagnosis.”

The campaign is designed to help parents, caregivers, educators and frontline health professionals recognize potential signs of rheumatic disease in children and understand when a referral to pediatric rheumatology may be appropriate. By encouraging earlier recognition and prompt evaluation, the initiative aims to help reduce disease progression and improve the lives of children affected by rheumatic conditions.

“Like adults, children, and adolescents also suffer from rheumatologic diseases such as juvenile idiopathic arthritis, systemic lupus, juvenile dermatomyositis, vasculitis and others. These diseases sometimes start insidiously. In addition, children may not always be able to clearly describe their symptoms such as joint pain or stiffness, and their symptoms can sometimes be mistaken for growing pains,” said Ekemini A. Ogbu, MD, MSc, Chair of the ACR Committee on Pediatric Rheumatology. “This campaign gives families and the people who support them practical information to identify concerning symptoms, seek care early and connect children with the right specialists for appropriate care.

RDAM 2026 also marks the 50th anniversary of the pediatric rheumatology specialty. Over five decades, pediatric rheumatologists have advanced the diagnosis, treatment and ongoing care of children living with rheumatic disease, helping more young people manage symptoms, stay active and participate fully in school, family and community life.”

The anniversary provides an important opportunity to recognize the specialty’s progress while reaffirming the need for timely diagnosis and equitable access to expert care.

The RDAM 2026 Campaign Toolkit offers free, shareable resources for organizations, caregivers, schools and clinicians, including:

  • A parent-friendly infographic that helps distinguish possible rheumatic disease symptoms from typical growing pains and provides referral guidance.
  • A clinician one-pager for pediatricians, school nurses and primary care teams outlining symptom red flags and referral pathways.
  • A school toolkit for teachers, counselors and school staff addressing mobility support, flare days and classroom accommodations.
  • A child-friendly coloring sheet highlighting low-impact physical activities that children with rheumatic disease may enjoy.
  • A video interview in which a pediatric rheumatologist addresses common questions from parents following a child’s diagnosis.
  • An ACR on Air podcast featuring a family’s experience with diagnosis, treatment, living with rheumatic disease and advocacy.
  • A blog post about a 16-year-old being diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, overcoming a difficult medical journey and who is now an advocate for other kids with rheumatic disease.
  • Downloadable social media graphics and sample captions focused on early recognition, family-centered support, school-based messaging and clinician awareness.

The campaign also features educational videos that highlight advances in pediatric rheumatology, the daily work of pediatric rheumatologists and the community of care surrounding children and families living with rheumatic disease.

Organizations and individuals are invited to share RDAM 2026 resources across their social channels, clinical settings, schools and community networks. By helping caregivers recognize symptoms earlier and seek specialized care promptly, partners can play a meaningful role in improving outcomes for children with rheumatic disease.

For RDAM 2026 campaign resources, including videos, downloadable graphics and educational tools, www.rdam.org.

ACR Releases New JIA Treatment Guidelines

Posted on by Grayson

Below is a press release from ACR dated May 13, 2026:

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) released updated guidelines for the treatment and management of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). These guidelines are companions to previously updated JIA guidelines released by the ACR in 2019 and 2022 and this update covers several types of juvenile idiopathic arthritis including polyarthritis, oligoarthritis, TMJ arthritis, enthesitis and dactylitis. Juvenile idiopathic arthritis related uveitis was also addressed as well as selected topics in non-pharmacologic management and imaging.

“The guidelines encourage early use of DMARDs with attention paid to risk factors that would suggest the need for early escalation of treatment. To that end, use of biologic DMARDs without the requirement of “failure” of conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs) was supported. Any required waiting period is too long if a child is not doing well,” said Karen Onel, MD, Chief of the Pediatric Rheumatology Division at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and the lead investigator of the guidelines. “Balancing treatment with careful screening for side-effects will allow for the best outcomes.”

The overarching goals of the updated guidelines are to promote early and aggressive treatment of JIA that preserves function and maximizes quality of life, encourage timely screening and monitoring to prevent articular and extra-articular damage, and facilitate effective shared decision-making among clinicians, patients, and caregivers.

“Many children in the US and around the world do not have access to expert pediatric rheumatology care. These guidelines should assist not only pediatric rheumatologists but adult rheumatologists and pediatricians in choosing best treatment for children with JIA.” said Dr. Onel. “Recommendations supporting the use of oral over subcutaneous methotrexate is a change from previous standard of care. Continued decreased reliance on NSAIDs and glucocorticoids has been emphasized. Recommendations have been made for mental health care in keeping with recent ACR guidance.

Like many other ACR guidelines, the updated guidelines for JIA were developed using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, which creates rigorous standards for judging the quality of the literature available and assigns strengths to the recommendations. The papers containing the full list of recommendations and supporting evidence are available on the ACR’s guideline page.

Disparities Contribute to Delays in Care and Unfavorable Disease Outcomes in pJIA

Posted on by Grayson

Although health disparities are prevalent in many chronic diseases, including rheumatic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), they remain poorly understood in pediatric rheumatology.

Two analyses conducted by the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) Registry have highlighted important disparities among children with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (pJIA).

Read more.

The American College of Rheumatology Releases Two Updated Guidelines for Treatment of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

Posted on by Grayson

The following is a press release from the ACR dated today:

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) released two updated guideline papers for the treatment and management of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). These two guidelines are companions to previously updated JIA guidelines released by the ACR and Arthritis Foundation in 2019 covering the treatment of polyarthritis, sacroiliitis, uveitis and enthesitis. One paper provides updates on the pharmacologic management of JIA, focusing on treatment of oligoarthritis, temporomandibular (TMJ) arthritis and systemic JIA (sJIA), with and without macrophage activation syndrome (MAS). The other focuses on non-pharmacologic therapies, medication monitoring, immunizations and imaging, irrespective of JIA phenotype.

The original JIA guidelines were published in 2011 and 2013, and this update reflects the ever-changing rheumatology field with new criteria on how to define disease and new medications to treat those diseases.

“As rheumatologists, our patients and caregivers expect us to review the literature and weigh the evidence so that we can suggest the best treatments, while also considering their preferences,” said Karen Onel, MD, Chief of the Pediatric Rheumatology Division at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and the lead investigator of the guidelines. “The field has changed tremendously since the 2011 and 2013 efforts, so we needed to adapt our guidance to the times in order to offer our patients the most nimble and state-of-the-art care possible.”

One example of where the guideline team has adapted is in their recommendations for using disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). The guideline on the pharmacologic management of JIA emphasizes early use of conventional synthetic and biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs. This is a much different treatment approach than what was previously recommended.

“For many years, treatment of JIA consisted of corticosteroids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), physical therapy, bracing and surgery. There were no DMARDs and even if there were, they were not tested or used in children,” said Dr. Onel. “These guidelines stress the early use of conventional synthetic and biologic DMARDs and the avoidance of glucocorticoids and NSAIDs. In fact, for systemic JIA the guidelines suggest using biologic DMARDs as a first line. We have turned the pyramid upside down.”

Two areas of importance for the non-pharmacologic paper were guidance on how to monitor drug toxicities for children with JIA and the importance of immunization. Laboratory test monitoring recommendations for medications such as NSAIDs, methotrexate, and hydroxychloroquine can be found on pages 6-9. There was strong support for the use of immunizations in children with JIA and specific guidance for children with JIA receiving immunosuppression, not on immunosuppression, and children who are under-immunized or unimmunized can be found on pages 10-11. Additionally, the guideline recommends the use of physical therapy and occupational therapy interventions and a healthy, well-balanced, age-appropriate diet.

Though the scope of the two guidelines differs, one thing they have in common: the importance of shared decision-making with the patient/caregiver.

“Not every decision will be appropriate for every patient, which is why it was so instrumental to receive input from both patients and caregivers when creating these recommendations,” said Dr. Onel.

While the guideline was being developed, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and COVID-19 immunization became possible. As none of the currently available vaccines against COVID-19 are live vaccines, recommendations for use in JIA should be similar to those stated for inactivated vaccines. While specific guidance on immunizing children with rheumatic diseases against COVID-19 is still lacking, the ACR has published guidance on COVID-19 vaccines for adults with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases.

At the time the manuscript was approved for publication, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use in children 5-15 years of age in the U.S and FDA approved for adolescents 16-18. In addition, two new medications were also approved while the guidelines were developed. These will be considered for future updates.

“There were areas that we didn’t consider at the start that now belong. The guidelines will have to be updated again. But that is a sign of a growing and changing field,” said Dr. Onel.

Like many other ACR guidelines, the updated guidelines for JIA were developed using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology, which creates rigorous standards for judging the quality of the literature available and assigns strengths to the recommendations. The papers containing the full list of recommendations and supporting evidence are available at on the ACR website.

PS: Hi, I helped with this!! Check out the other teams involved (pdf).

Conference Catch-up

Posted on by Grayson
There is so much from the last few months to catch up on!
After visiting Toronto earlier this year, I made my way to Phoenix, Arizona, for the Juvenile Arthritis Conference (West).
Being able to be around some of my favorite advocates is something that I truly love about attending these conferences… but to present? That was a whole new level of awesome.
I was so blessed to be able to present with my pals Mariah Leach and Jeremy Forsyth as well. Their dedication to helping others, being informative, and being silly matched me so well. Jeremy, for example, thought we could loosen everyone up by screaming sex in ridiculous ways before our session started.
It worked and that laughter was so contagious.
We definitely tried to copy that at the east JA Conference in Philly in August, where Keegan Stephen was our male expert.
These two groups of college-aged peeps with various types of arthritis were so engaged, so interested, and so in tune with wanting to learn everything they could about what we were saying. So many thoughtful questions came out of both the west and the east conferences. Over at Chronic Sex, Mariah and I will be going through the question cards and providing some answers within the next few months.
All of this gives me so much hope for what Chronic Sex can and will be able to accomplish. I am SO excited.
In September, I traveled back to California to present Chronic Sex at Stanford Medicine X.
I got to spend time with some of my favorite people like Dawn Gibson and Heather Corini Aspell. I also got to room with my pal Danielle Edges who FINALLY got to meet my sister.
I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING. Seriously, this picture alone was worth my travels. My sister and Danielle have become close friends and we’re almost like triplets with time in between our births. It’s just too awesome.
Dawn spent a few days near where my sister lives with me and got to spend time playing auntie. I spent a couple of extra days and then headed down to Los Angeles for the Women in Pain conference… BUT not before meeting one of my favorite people in the world, Kate McCombs!
We had dinner the night before the conference and then spent basically the whole next day together, from the conference to just hanging out.
There are so many people in my life that mean so much to me, but meeting Kate in person is something that I cannot even put into words. We are so similar and so in-tune with each other, bringing out the most compassionate parts of ourselves to deal not only with our own illnesses but helping others as well.
I stayed an extra night to spend time on the Queen Mary because I have a ghost hunting problem… though I was so tired, I didn’t try this time!
In October, I was lucky enough to attend the Joint Decisions Empowerment Summit in Philadelphia.
One of my favorite parts of the whole experience was spending time doing the Bioexperience tour at Janssen! That alone needs its own blog post because it was absolutely fascinating to see how much pharmaceutical companies care about us – how we’re going to administer treatments, costs, protective measures, and more.
Well, and then I got to spend time with some of my absolute favorite people in the world from Janssen, Tonic, and us Joint Decisions/Creaky Joints peeps!
I got a new nickname from Kenzie, too: whimsical unicorn warrior.
It’s my absolute favorite thing ever.
I already have written about my experience at the summit with the What I Be project, so make sure to check that out, too.
And then it was back to New York, this time for a project with Healthline. A pharma company wanted to hear more about the patient (and patient advocate/activist) experience. I was lucky to hang out with some amazing people like Emily Lemiska and MarlaJan Wexler:
I had been jokingly looking at Hamilton ticket prices because I am obsessed with the play as we all know.
Turns out that it was just slightly less than my stipend to go see it alone while I was in New York so guess what I did?
I FUCKING SAW HAMILTON ON BROADWAY BITCHES.
It was so amazing. I cannot even fully put the experience into words. It was well worth the post-show in-flight migraine.
I had a big week last week, conference-wise and seeing Hamilton and more!
When I got back, I was able to do some podcasting, work on homework, and, you know, just casually meet my favorite person in the world – Joe Biden.
This picture was a big fucking deal y’all. YES.
Later this week, I’m headed back to New York – this time for a family vacation with T’s mom and stepdad to visit his sister and her dude who live in Queens. I am so excited to go travel where I’m not necessarily tweeting and such but able to be silly.
More conferences are on the way, though thankfully not until 2017. I’m ready to expand the work that I do and help others as much as I can.
Disclaimer time: the Arthritis Foundation, Stanford Medicine X, and Women in Pain all paid for my travels to and/or from their conferences. Janssen Pharmaceuticals paid for my travels to the Joint Decisions Empowerment Summit and provided perks while traveling. Healthline paid for my travel as well as providing me a stipend for my time in New York. All opinions here, though, are mine and mine alone.

 

Heading to Phoenix!

Posted on by Grayson
This time tomorrow, I’ll be in Phoenix, Arizona, frantically prepping to talk sex and arthritis with the young adults (18+) living with JA at the Juvenile Arthritis Conference West.
I’m super excited. Oddly, I feel like I should be much more nervous than I currently am? Like, running a session isn’t something I’ve ever done?
But I’ll have some amazing people up there with me including my pal Mariah.
I have to go finish resource sheets and frantically pack while singing Hamilton so I get cocky instead of too freaked out.

 

July is Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month

Posted on by Grayson
July is one of my favorite months, and it’s not just because T’s birthday is the 15th.
It’s because it’s JA Awareness Month!
According to the Arthritis Foundation, there are six main types of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA): Oligoarthritis (4 or fewer joints affected), Polyarthritis (5 or more joint affected), Systemic, Enthesitis-Related, Juvenile Psoriatic Arthritis or Undifferentiated. There are also additional types of Juvenile Arthritis that also commonly occur in adults such as fibromyalgia, lupus, MCTD, and more.
We all know that illness can be hard to bear, but this is especially true in childhood. Often, we get upset that we cannot function as another child may, even resorting to thinking that everyone has this pain but we just super suck at handling it.
The elimination of self-esteem in illness is so real… which is definitely why, for adults, we have Chronic Sex now.
Speaking of: Are you heading to either of the Juvenile Arthritis Conferences put on by the Arthritis Foundation this year? I’ll be at both and would LOVE to see you! If you are in the young adult age range (18+ with arthritis), please note that I will be presenting along with some pals on relationships and sex in a closed-door session taking place during the final time slot on the Saturday of each conference. Come talk sex with us!

 

A post for parents

Posted on by Grayson

Hey guys.

How are things?

I know I don’t always address y’all, and that isn’t cool. If you’ve read a lot on my site, you’ll know that I don’t really relate well with the whole parenting thing. I’d love to, you know, not feel like an orphan. Where’s a tardis to turn back time when you need one?

In my recent life as a guinea pig mom, I’ve started learning a lot more about mothering and just how amazingly difficult it can be to handle a sick kid. I know guinea pigs aren’t kids, but gosh, they really are my baby boys. They’ve each had issues that T and I freaked out over, made vet appointments, and loved on those boys a lot more than normal.

I’m not stranger to worrying about and helping with kids, having rushed to California earlier this year due to my then-newborn nephew’s congenital heart defect and resulting open heart surgery. He’s doing well now, but still. And his big sister is so smart. I think of them every day.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to deal with this all as a parent, from the practical matters of working or income with doctor’s appointments to the lack of pediatric rheumatologists forcing you to have long breaks in between visits you have to travel hours for to watching your baby be sick and yet so amazingly them.

So here’s a post for you, to recognize all the things you do and all the emotional crud you go through while you hide it to fight for your kids.

You freaking rock.

 

The 2015 Juvenile Arthritis Conference

Posted on by Grayson

It seems like every conference or gathering I go to brings me new ideas and thoughts to raise more awareness of arthritis. The JA conference was no different.

Check in at the hotel was just a little bit busy, but that’s bound to happen when you have 1700+ people! 1100 of us were first-timers which is a big part of why they have the conference set up this way for next year…

How exciting is that?!

My first order of business was to run down and snag my swag bag before heading over to the young adult opening session.

The opening night dinner was the next event, and the last that I went to for the night even though there was a young adult networking session.

The opening dinner was great with plenty of gluten free foods. We heard from AF CEO Ann Palmer, JA conference chair for the year and SJIA mom Rochelle Lentini, and others. Probably my most favorite part of the night was when Ana Villafañe talked and performed for us.

One of the things that I loved about the whole conference was how much more of a focus on SJIA there seemed to be compared to past events. SJIA is rare, so I get that many may not feel it as prudent to discuss, but it was great. I say this because Ana has SJIA. Despite her illness issues, she’s debuting on BROADWAY in November in On Your Feet, a musical about Gloria Estefan and her family.

Instead of hitting the YA networking session, T and I hit the pool – something that surprisingly we hadn’t done all trip yet! It was a wonderful way to rest.

The next day started at nine with a panel of amazing people – Ana, Todd Peck (NASCAR driver), and juvenile/adult rheumatologist Dr. Sandra Pagnussat.

All three of these amazing people have fought hard to become who they are today. They each went through difficult periods in their lives and how they made it through.

One of the nice things about being in the YA category is that I could attend the sessions meant for parents and caregivers… even though they couldn’t attend our sessions. For the next few sessions of the day, I was able to pop out and enjoy some SJIA and very science-driven sessions.

The first session I attended was on diseases like SJIA that are autoinflammatory in nature instead of autoimmune. Perhaps the biggest thing I learned in this session was that adolescent boys are more likely to have one SJIA flare and be done with it. If you have five years or more of active disease, it’s likely you will deal with it the rest of your life. The good thing, though, is that less than 50% of cases have severe or life-threatening complications… how sad is that what slightly less than half is good news?

Dr. Elder also talked a bit about Macrophage Activation Syndrome, or MAS, and how it often isn’t recognized right away due to the many diseases it mimics like hepatitis. It’s estimated that about 10% of SJIA patients will have overt MAS but that 30-40% will have symptoms of MAS without it being full blown. She explained the difference between autoinflammatory and autoimmune, which I hope to cover in a later post.

Interleukin (IL) 1 Beta, which Ilaris and Kineret treat, is responsible for many of the systemic features including rash. It’s also the major cytokine responsible for septic shock, which is what Kineret was first developed to treat but it failed to do so. IL-6 is responsible for maintaining many of the arthritic features including later osteoporosis and growth retardation. IL-18 is responsible for MAS and can possibly be used as a biomarker for SJIA in the future.

Something interesting that I found was that, in theory, you’re not supposed to consider a diagnosis of SJIA if the patient or his/her immediate family members have psoriasis. This is supposed to be consider Psoriatic Arthritis. I was a little shocked honestly, as I have psoriasis and SJIA, but Dr. Elder explained that there are outliers and both can exist in one patient. It’s just more rare because of the autoinflammatory and autoimmune differences. You don’t often see a person who has issues in both their innate and adaptive immune systems.

Novartis, the company that makes Ilaris, was kind enough to host a SJIA lunch Friday. I ended up at a table with the Sloan family and the Burgos family… whose little guy kept flirting with me throughout the rest of the conference.

I’ve developed baby fever Rafael!

I also was able to meet Leah Bush and Amanda Hendrix, two SJIA moms that I just LOVE. Honestly they’re a big part of why I blog and it was so nice to be able to give them some hugs and say hey.

The lunch itself was great. They displayed some amazing pictures from the Picture Your Best Day with SJIA project and talked about the new Know SJIA website as a joint venture between Novartis and the Arthritis Foundation. The website has some great resources including this handy SJIA symptom tracker.

The next parental session I crashed was Genetics 101 with Dr. Troy Torgerson from Seattle. It was more focused on the autoimmune side than the autoinflammatory side, but was very interesting. One of my favorite quotes from this presentation was “we’re all mutants.” There was something so comforting in knowing all of our DNA is messed up in different ways, and to have a pediatric rheumatologist who is also an immunologist kind of say that this doesn’t make us that different.

With me being a big of a science nerd, I LOVED this presentation. It was nice that I knew about some of it beforehand because it helped me to grasp some of the other issues he discussed.

The next session was led by Shelly Baer, Robert Hernandez, and Kevin Purcell (founder of Arthritis Introspective) on self-esteem and body image – “I’m sexy and YOU know it!” It, like many of the other YA sessions, was really a forum to bring up issues we had. It was interesting sitting in there and really realizing how far I have come in the last two years on self love and self care. I had multiple things I liked about myself and others were struggling to find just one.

It both made me proud of myself and show compassion towards others. It’s so hard to live with this disease as a young person, dealing with societal ideals of beauty when we can’t meet them.

That night the young adults hung out by the pool and took some selfies!

And I actually wore my two piece in front of other people! AND GOT COMPLIMENTED!

It’s been a while.

The next morning started off with an awards session, followed by a conversation on the new partnership between the AF and CARRA (the childhood arthritis and rheumatology research alliance).

I was starting to feel a little beat so I had to take up a lot of room.

The cool thing about CARRA is that it started out as a group of pediatric rheumatologists and researchers coming together to see what they could do to help these sick kiddos. We have all these great drugs, but more are coming down the pipeline. The registry that CARRA has developed can help to track information better and utilize patient information, deidentified of course, to bring more change for the better.

It’s an amazing way to promote patient engagement in research, which is something we all should be interested in.

The most moving part of the morning opener was when Vincent Del Gaizo got up to speak about his involvement with CARRA as a parent of a SJIA patient. He discussed his son’s difficult case and the changes in how well he’s doing now.

The next awesome presentation was about relationships. We heard from Dr. P (from the opening YA panel), Jeremy and Renee Forsyth, and George and Joy Ross. We heard about their stories and then it, again, turned into a very open panel. We discussed topics like disclosure, where I brought up telling T on my first date and how he’s always seen it as a part of me, communication, and recommitting to each other daily.

During our lunch break, I stopped by the Novartis table to ask about Ilaris and the different patient assistance programs available. Apparently they will even help you fight to get the drug put on your insurance company’s formulary! How cool is that?

T and I enjoyed some food truck goodies and I headed off to the next session on transition.

I was a little disappointed in that I heard there were supposed to be several people on this panel, but at the end we only had two – Catherine Miney and Janet Hess, PhD, MPHS, CHES. Janet helped to standardize the transition to adulthood across the state of Florida, which I’m sure wasn’t easy to do!

It was a very open discussion, and I wound up contributing to a lot of the answers with new ideas on how to handle what some of these amazing people were dealing with.

After sharing information on some of the apps I enjoy like Arthritis Power, I headed up to my room. There was another session to go but I was just wiped out and I needed to rest. Theron and I took a short nap and then went out for some late night barbecue before working on packing up.

In the morning we stopped by the walk & jungle bell run expo, where we ran into some of my favorite people like Tory who runs Mariah’s Movers. Then I ran into AF CEO Ann Palmer…

I bugged her for a minute to thank her for the change she’s brought to the organization because, honestly, this was a lot better than I thought it would be. Apparently she’s heard of me? Yikes!

We headed over to the hope tree next where we saw some of the cutest hopes, and I put up my own that no one else would have to lose a loved one to JA.

The YA program did their wrap up.

And then we heard from Joy Ross at the general closing.

They announced my friend Colleen Ryan as the next conference host and that we’d have TWO to look forward to!

The conference itself was so amazing. There were so many different sessions to chose from. The hotel was perfect, though sometimes the signage could’ve been better. The food was great and gluten-free friendly. The people I met were amazing and the changes on the way will make the AF into what I’ve felt I wanted it to be, at least for the young adults – a way to shape us into advocacy leaders, a way to get us more involved, and a way to shine despite our illnesses.

My time in Florida was already amazing, from meeting my friend Emily to finally going to Harry Potter world to enjoyed feeding giraffes at Busch Gardens to sitting on the beach and relaxing. I didn’t have time to hit up Disney, but that just means I’ll be back Florida. You better be ready for me!

There are SO many more recaps out there, including the official AF ones. You can also snag presentations and materials from the conference here.

Wanna see me live-tweet at a conference? You can! Join me on my MedX journey Sept 24-27! I’ll be live tweeting the whole time so hit me up@kirstie_schultz, catch the live streams at the Medicine X website, and join in the conversations using the tag #MedX.