Chronic Recurrent Multifocal Osteomyelitis (CRMO) is a rare autoimmune condition that causes inflammation in the bones. CRMO affects one in a million people and generally is diagnosed during late childhood. Individuals living with CRMO can go through something called "flare ups" meaning they can go through phases of experiencing extreme pain to living life with almost no pain at all, depending on how the immune system treats the individuals bones. CRMO is a lot of times an invisible disease that only the person living with CRMO knows is present.

My name is Brienna Hogben and I have been living with Chronic Recurrent Multifocal Osteomyelitis (CRMO) for 8 years. I went through years of being misdiagnosed, attending multiple sessions of physiotherapy, ultrasounds, x-rays, blood tests, MRI's and endless doctor's visits. It wasn't until I got a stress fracture in my foot from soccer and my doctor finally sent me for a bone scan when I finally got diagnosed with CRMO. It was not as simple as getting a bone scan and being diagnosed with CRMO, however. When I was 12 I started getting pains in my left knee. The pain soon spread to my right knee and radiated down to my right ankle. The age I was at the time was the typical age for doctors and adults to just simply say "she's still growing, it's probably just growing pains" leaving me lost and in pain for years. When I fractured my foot I was sent for a bone scan strictly for my foot, however, it shifted to being a whole body bone scan as both of my legs were showing signs of inflammation. My family doctor misdiagnosed me for the final time by telling me, a 15 year old girl at the time, that I had cancer. I was rushed to the Toronto sick kids once the weekend was over, when I then was properly diagnosed with CRMO.

My story is one of thousands, it is time we raise awareness for this rare auto-immune condition and allow more than the >10000 people who have CRMO to know what the condition is.