Arthritis Foundation Virtual Communities
A blogging friend of mine recently wrote a post about July being Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month, a topic that is very near and dear to my heart.
You see, when I was in 6th grade, about 30 years ago (yikes), I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. Essentially, it was described as an infection of the large intestine resulting in debilitating arthritic flare ups in my ankles, knees, hips, and wrists. Some times it was a “hot” pain that required ice packs and some times it was a “cold” pain and relief came with a heating pad. Regardless of what kind of pain I was in, even Motrin (back when Ibuprofen was only available with a prescription) did not work.
After many doctor visits, hospital stays and medications I am happy to say, that I have been free from joint pain and intestinal infection for many years. However, many children aren’t as fortunate as I have been and suffer with similar symptoms and pain. In fact, 1 out of 250 children have been diagnosed with some form or another of arthritis and many cases often go misdiagnosed or overlooked.
In order to create awareness and fight for the cause, I have recently joined the Arthritis Foundation’s Facebook group, Flickr group and I have downloaded a widget on my blog. I hope that you will be encouraged by my story to leave a comment about how you have used social media to promote your cause and if you don’t have one, feel free to place the JA Foundation widget on your blog, because kids get Arthritis too.
6 comments
This is FANTASTIC! I did a lot of work with the Juvenile Arthritis Foundation throughout college and people have no idea how terrible this can really be for a child. It is great to hear there are some nice new social outlets for people turn too.
I agree Holly. The Arthritis Foundation also has a MySpace profile as well as an account on YouTube. These non profit sites are really using social media tools to their benefit and I commend them.
Thanks Kristen for taking the ball and running with it. I didn’t even know there was an Arthritis Foundaion FaceBook group nor a widget. I joined the group and will be adding the widget. Thanks!
That’s good to hear, I have been suffering from osteoarthritis since 10 years but I could find a few blogs and forum(I am talking about blogs and forums with some useful information on this).
As a 36 year old women with Rheumatoid Arthritis, I wanted to thank you for helping to raise awareness for arthritis. Kids with arthritis have a special place in my heart as well, as I have spent the last four years as a counselor at a camp for kids with arthritis-related diseases called Camp Esperanza (Big Bear, CA).
A few weeks ago I started a blog called Arthritis Friend, which offers tips and tricks, inspiration, and more for people battling various forms of arthritis. It is my hope to help people manage their disease better so they can lead a full life. I created a Facebook fan page to promote the site and plan to find more ways to use social media to drive traffic to my blog.
http://www.arthritisfriend.com
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