Hi, my name is Lee and I am 22 years old.  I got diagnosed with Stills when I was 17.  It was in 97 the last week in July when I noticed that I had a rash covering a large part of the back of my leg. I just thought that I was just having an allergic reaction to something so I really didn't worry to much about it.  By the time I got home the rash had gotten much larger.  I put some cream on it and went on to bed.  I didn't sleep very well that night.  I remember feeling kinda achy all over.  When I woke up the next morning I felt real bad.  That's when I noticed that the rash was all over my body.  My biggest concern at the time was going out in public looking like I did.  Little did I know that what was happening to me at the time was going to change my life.  I stayed at home all day and by that night I started having some joint pain in my wrist. By the next morning I couldn't move a muscle.  I was in the most pain I have ever experienced.  I was living with my uncle and his wife at the time so I tried to call for them but my throat was so sore it was hard.  My uncle came in the room to see why I wasn't up, he saw me and said the he was taking me to the ER at the local hospital.  To make a long story short the ER sent me back home and said I had acute Streep-throat.  He even showed me to a couple of interns and made an example out of me.  The only good thing that came out of that visit was a predisone shot and a five day pack of predisone.  As I am sure you know that the predisone is a wonderful drug that can make you feel much better but actually helps you none. (Long-term I mean) I did of course start to feel better but in just a few days the predisone had started to ware off.  I got a lot worse this time.  My throat was so swollen that I couldn't eat or drink anything.  I went back to the same ER and this time they sent me home and said I had a viral infection.  That very night I was in so much pain that they took me to another ER.  I was in the waiting room 5 min. before they had me in the back hooking me up to IV's and taking lots of blood.  I was in that hospital for a week before that had any idea what was wrong with me.  I was more scared than I have ever been before in my life.  I had doctors left and right coming in to look at me.  Well, I finally got diagnosed with this Stills disease and no one could tell me anything about it.  So here I am 17 years old and diagnosed with this disease that I nor my doctors know anything about.  They put me on 60 mg of predisone, 3,750 mg of Soliate and some other stuff (that just about killed me) a day.  I missed half of my senior year because I had to be homebound.  The disease had caused my liver to become enlarged. I then ended up with pleuracey (?) and an infection in the lining of my stomach.  I was on the Predisone for nine months and the rest of the medicines for about a year and a half.  The doctors said it was in remission and probably wouldn't come back.  Well, they were wrong.  It did and I am fighting with it now.  I have felt very alone in this because no one seems to have ever heard of  "Stills disease".  I was very amazed that I even found such a web site.  It would be nice to talk to someone that knows how it feels.