A BRAVE little girl who suffers from a rare auto-immune disease affecting only one in a million children is battling through her pain to start school today.

Five-year-old Paityn Brannigan has had to undergo years of gruelling treatment, with weekly doses of chemotherapy, to counter the excruciating pain that has ravaged her tiny body.

The five-year-old, who walked through the gates of King’s Oak this morning against all the odds, suffers from juvenile dermatomyositis (JMD), a condition so rare that most doctors have never even heard of it.

But her proud family say she is never without a smile on her face.

Mum Shantelle Higgins, 28, of Greenock, said: “She couldn’t wait to start school but I can’t believe everything that she has been through.

“She lives in terrible pain and has to take so much medication.

“It is so bad she is incapable of actually feeling it, she doesn’t know any different.

“If Paityn goes to a birthday party and runs around, she has to come home and go for a sleep - it really drains her.

“But she is amazing at managing it all.

“She is never away from hospital — we went on holiday to a caravan and within hours we were in an ambulance.”

The disease starts as a rash, causes severe muscle weakening, fatigue and constant pain.

Paityn takes medication round the clock and a back pack with everything she needs must be by her side at all times.

She is prescribed steroids to fight the disease, but that has also caused severe side effects.

Earlier this year she was diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency on top of the JMD, because the steroids had damaged a crucial gland that stops the body from going into shock.

Mum Shantelle, who works as a quality assessor, added: “Paityn wasn’t diagnosed with JMD early enough because no one knew what it was.

“She was diagnosed at three.

“It started with a kind of butterfly rash caused by a bug or something.

“I went to the GP because of the rashes and they kept giving me cream for eczema. 

“No one had ever heard of it before.

“Paityn and I had to go to a teaching session with top consultants to speak to them and explain the symptoms, so they would know what to look out for.

“When we go to A&E they never know what it is.”

Every week Paityn has to have doses of methotrexate, a type of chemotherapy, to try to shrink the disease, and her mum says the future is uncertain.

She said: “We don’t know what will happen, whether it will ever go away.”
For Shantelle it has been heartbreaking to watch her little girl suffer.

She said: “She had one of those cabin beds with stairs.

“She used to ask me every night to lift her and put her up on the bed and I just through that was what a wee girl would do. 

“But it turned out she was in so much pain she just couldn’t put her feet on the steps. The doctors said it would have been too much for her to bear. 
Inspirational Paityn has pulled her family through with her big smiles.

Shantelle said: “She could have went to school last year but I just thought she had been through enough. She was in such constant pain.

“But she can’t wait to go now and we will all be there when she walks through the door.”

Her nursery Glenbrae Children’s Centre raised money last year for the Teapot Trust, a charity which provides art therapy for chronically ill children, who have helped her cope.

Mum Shantelle said: “The Teapot Trust have helped so much.”

Shantelle says she has found it tough caring for Paityn, taking her to hospital and juggling a full time job. 

But she added: “I want Paityn to see that there is life after this. I don’t want her to grow up thinking that her life is restricted because of this, I want to show her what she can do. My work have been great throughout this.”

Paityn’s gran Margaret Higgins spoke of her overwhelming pride in both Shantelle and Paityn.

She said: “You would never know there was anything wrong with her, just looking at her.

“She is a miracle and every day is a blessing. I honestly don’t know how Shantelle has coped with it all.

“They have been through so much.”