‘Arthritis ruined my childhood. Helping others is my therapy’

Rummaging through her clothes, she packed one piece of clothing after another neatly into a suitcase.

Closing the lid, she quickly checked that she had everything she needed – she wasn’t going on holiday after all.

With a deep breath and her worldly belongings in tow, she slipped out the door of her family home in Drylaw . . . for good.

There had been no row with her mum, no playing truant from school and no boyfriend that she desperately wanted to live with.

On that day in October 2002, the 16-year-old wasn’t just running away from home, she was running away from the condition that had plagued her life since the age of two – rheumatoid arthritis.

More specifically, she was running away from the gruelling treatment that she had endured since she was a toddler, most of which caused severe side-effects including migraines and nausea.

It was a desperate attempt to avoid her family’s pleas to return to hospital for further treatment.

“I was constantly being poked and prodded by doctors and needles, and there were endless tests and examinations,” Denise recalls.

“I was terrified of my illness. My memories of hospital treatment during childhood are still my nightmares.

“It was a necessity to take medicine twice a day and I had to wear leg splints overnight.”

Despite leaving home so abruptly, Denise still saw her mum regularly, who she praises with doing “the most amazing job” of bringing her up.

But even the woman she described as “her rock” couldn’t convince Denise to continue her treatment, which she stopped for almost ten years.

It wasn’t until Denise, now 25, finally plucked up the courage to seek help from charity Arthritis Care in 2010, that she decided to return to hospital the following year for the medical treatment she desperately needs.

She has since been selected as the face of Arthritis Care’s new fundraising campaign, which has seen her story and photograph featured on an appeal letter for funding – which Denise helped to write – sent to thousands of residents in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Her involvement with the direct mail campaign, which is set to launch in Scotland next month, has already resulted in £34,000 worth of donations for the charity.

Denise, a third-year public relations and media student at Queen Margaret University, says: “I really wanted to help other people like me.

“When I first agreed to be the face of the new campaign, I thought it was fantastic, but then half-way through I thought, ‘wait a minute’.

“I had gone from not telling anybody anything for ten years to all of a sudden telling everybody so publicly, and I thought, ‘is this the right thing to be doing?’

“But I think it is, because if more people like me can speak up, it will raise awareness.”

Denise, who lives in Leith, adds: “The biggest thing is the stigma of arthritis being an old person’s disease, but it’s not.

“If I had a pound for every time someone has said that their gran has arthritis, I would be a very rich young lady.”

Denise raises a valid point. There are around 27,000 people under the age of 25 with arthritis in the UK, and 12,000 children currently living with the disease.

But the statistics offer little comfort to the people struggling to cope with the debilitating condition day in, day out.

For Denise, it means waking up to find she can’t walk at all some days. Even on a “good day”, she has a limp, and simple tasks like making a cup of tea or opening a door are a struggle due to chronic swelling, pain and stiffness in her hands.

Denise, whose hands, knees and ankles are particularly affected by the disease, says: “It is excruciating pain and it doesn’t go away – it’s there constantly. You learn to live with it but it takes its toll.

“It can take an hour to find the energy to get ready in the morning and by mid-afternoon, you’re so tired. It feels like you’ve put on 50 stone overnight and you’re carrying around this extra weight.”