INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A Riley Hospital for Children clinic’s battle of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis has made waves in the medical community and drawn people to come to Indiana for treatment.

Dr. Shaun Matthews is an oral maxillofacial surgeon at IU Health who’s about to be honored for his work. Matthews works with patients on arthritis in the jaw.

He started a multidisciplinary clinic, the TMJ Insitute, alongside Dr. Susan Ballinger, a rheumatologist at Riley Hospital, to treat juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, also known as juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Rheumatologists work with patients with arthritis and diseases of the bones, muscles and joints.

The two at Riley Hospital work alongside physical therapists, pain specialists and other professionals.

Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is often overlooked because the disease is most commonly associated with adults. Matthews said around 300,000 children have the disease and 7,000 of them live in Indiana.

Matthews uses a multidisciplinary approach to treat his patients. The goal is to exhaust all other options prior to offering a surgical option.

“We’re collaborating together,” Matthews said. “All one voice and we’re presenting them with a treatment plan to help move them forward.”

Anne Bowen is a 24-year-old woman who just “graduated” from Matthew’s clinic at Riley Hospital. It took nearly a decade and an operation on her jaw but she is finally seeing some lasting relief from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Bowen had extreme pain in the right side of her jaw and right knee.

“I had trouble eating, smiling, laughing, yelling, all the things you want to do growing up and those became very restrictive as you turn 15, 16, 17,” Bowen said.

Matthews used a minimally invasive surgery to help “clean up” Bowen’s jaw. Matthews said more advanced cases of rheumatoid arthritis could require a full jaw joint replacement. If Bowen did not get the early intervention of this minimally invasive surgery, this could have been her fate as well, but the team at Riley prevented that.

We “clean out the jaw joint, clean out the debris and all the mediators of inflammation that cause pain in an arthritic joint, wash those all out,” Matthews said. “And before we take the arthroscope and the needles out we then flood the jaw joint with a steroid.”

Bowen said having this disease did affect her socially as it worsened in her teen years.

“Modifying different things such as eating, driving, moving my body, trying different therapies as well really helped make those experiences a little better for me,” Matthews said.

Bowen said this surgery is not the end. She still has to take medication, exercise and take good care of her overall health to keep her rheumatoid arthritis symptoms at bay.

Bowen nominated Matthews to be the Arthritis Foundation‘s medical honoree at this year’s Bone Bash, and he won the award for his life-changing work. He will be honored at an event Oct. 14.