Young girls smile and pose together for a cheerful photo

Hi, I’m Abby. For those who don’t know, I was diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis when I was 20 months old; uveitis, which is inflammation in the eyes caused by arthritis when I was 7 years old; and Crohn’s disease when I was 8 years old.

When I wrote my book when I was 8, I had just started a biological medicine called Humira, which is an injection my mom gave me every 2 weeks to suppress the part of my immune system that was attacking my body. I used to think that there were times I was feeling good before Humira. But my good before Humira wasn’t good. I was still hurting. When I had Humira I started feeling great for the first time since I was old enough to remember.

Unfortunately, I had to stop the medicine due to side effects, and my doctors put me on methotrexate instead. Methotrexate is a chemotherapy medicine that is used at much lower doses in weekly shots to treat autoimmune diseases. It suppresses the immune system so it can’t attack the body.

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