Stephanie and Christopher Smith have been on a long, difficult and often frustrating journey to find answers for the mysterious health issues of their children. It started 24 years ago when their third child, Gage, was born. Gage, his younger brother Aiden and then sister Mandalynn, now 13, all developed mysterious symptoms that mystified doctors. All had severe inflammation of their joints, and delayed intellectual development. But no one knew why.

Through luck, or fate, or divine providence, the family ended up in Boaz, Alabama. The children became patients of Children’s of Alabama and pediatric rheumatologist Robb Lowe, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Pediatrics.Their timing was fortunate, because UAB had just created the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, a multidisciplinary effort aimed at unraveling the most perplexing medical cases that have defied diagnosis.

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