About Speciality

A pediatric rheumatologist is a physician who specializes in providing comprehensive care to children (as well as their families) with rheumatic diseases, especially arthritis.

Pediatric rheumatologists are pediatricians who have completed an additional 2-3 years of specialized training in pediatric rheumatology and are usually have a post doctoral certification in paediatric rheumatology.

A paediatric rheumatologist is skilled in the following areas

• Evaluation of joint pains, joint swellings and loss of function of any limb.
• Evaluation of unexplained rash, fever, arthritis, anemia, weakness, weight loss, fatigue, muscle pain, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and anorexia.
• Evaluation of diseases such as juvenile arthritis, spondylitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome, dermatomyositis, Sjogren’s syndrome, vasculitis, scleroderma, mixed connective tissue disease, sarcoidosis, Lyme disease, osteomyelitis, relapsing polychondritis, Henoch-Schonlein purpura, serum sickness, reactive arthritis, Kawasaki’s disease, fibromyalgia, erythromelalgia, Raynaud’s disease, growing pains, iritis, and osteoporosis in children.
• What diseases do we look after?
  As pediatric rheumatologists we look after several diseases that affect the musculoskeletal system of children. Many of these diseases affect the joints and caused joint pain and swelling, hence paediatric rheumatologists are often thought of as doctors who look after “arthritis”.
• The children who are evaluated by pediatric rheumatologists may have any of the four problems.
  1. Inflammatory diseases of the joints, skin and other internal organs such that the disease is a primary rheumatologic disorder.
  2. Joint pains which are caused by diseases which are other than inflammatory such as storage disorders, bleeding diathesis, malignancies and skeletal Dysplasias.
  3. Non-inflammatory joint pains which are caused by mechanical and metabolic disorders such as the Benign Hypermobility syndromes, thyroid disorders, vitamin D deficiency, etc.
  4. Finally, the pediatric rheumatologist is a skilled Physician who can help to identify the cause of prolonged fevers in children.  Rheumatological causes of fever which is prolonged in children may be because of some forms of Childhood arthritis, connective tissue diseases, or rarely because of systemic vasculitis.