PITTSBURGH -- Alison Fritz, 16, of Erie, has suffered from arthritis pain most of her life.

“I just thought it was normal,” said Fritz.

Her mom knew it wasn't.

Two years ago Fritz was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

“I had to quit the basketball team and I got really depressed. Then I had to start taking a lot of medicine,” said Fritz.

It's not unusual to misdiagnosis arthritis in children.

Researchers at Children's Hospital teamed up with Carnegie Mellon University to develop 3-D imaging cameras that actually show the inflammation caused by arthritis.

Doctors evaluate the pattern of temperature.

In a thermal image of Fritz's hand, the red area is warmer and the yellow area cooler.

Doctors look at the pattern of the heat distribution to measure the severity of the inflammation.

The cameras also measure the swelling in joints.

Using green boxes around specific joints, doctors can isolate those areas and measure the volume in that area to see if it's swollen, so next time they remeasure they can tell if there has been a change in the swelling.

Until now doctors depended on a patients description of pain.

The camera will help in prescribing proper doses of medication at much earlier stages of the disease.

Nearly 300,000 children in the United States suffer from some form of arthritis.

The new technology is still in the testing stage, but doctors are very optimistic that it will soon be available to all arthritis sufferers.