(CLEVELAND (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- We think of arthritis as something that hits when we get old. But it can strike kids, too. One type can leave kids in constant pain, and there hasn’t been an effective treatment ... Until now.

She hops, sings, and dances like other 3-year olds. But last year, little Avril spent her days in bed at the hospital. It started with a fever and rashes that wouldn't go away and pain that spread to every part of her body.

"She would complain her neck hurt. Her fingers hurt, her knees hurt, and they kept saying it was symptoms of the flu," says Avril’s grandmother, Avril Sutherland-Wagner, Sr.

But Avril's widowed grandmother and great-aunt knew it wasn't the flu. She had almost quit eating because she had it in her jaw bones.

Finally, they found a doctor who knew what "it" was. Pediatric rheumatologist Philip Hashkes, M.D., diagnosed Avril with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, or JIA, and put her on the drug Kineret.

"It was literally a miracle drug. The day after she got this medicine, all her other symptoms were gone," Dr. Hashkes, of the Cleveland Clinic, tells Ivanhoe.

Every day nurses come to house to give Avril an injection of Kineret. It hurts, but it's worth it.

Sutherland-Wagner, Sr., says, "She doesn't complain of any pains, of any aches. She laughs; she jokes, she marches, she dances. And that's what being a child is."

Kineret is approved for adult rheumatoid arthritis, although it's not the best treatment for that disease. Dr. Hashkes says it works best for a child recently diagnosed who hasn't responded to other treatments. Side effects include colds, headaches and a risk for infection because Kineret works on the immune system.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Shirley Wells
Cleveland Clinic
(216) 444-3250
wellss@ccf.org