AT JUST 17, cricketer Joe Batchelor felt like he had the body of an old man as he struggled to even walk.

The teenager was suffering from crippling arthritis that meant he had to give up the love of his life - cricket.

But now, thanks to a new wonder drug, he is back on the pitch with his team, Hamble Assc Cricket Club.

Joe, 19, began to get severe joint pain soon after turning 17. Doctors thought it was growing pains, but Joe was certain it was something else.

Eventually he was referred to Southampton General Hospital, where he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

Joe, who lives with his parents in Peartree Avenue, Bitterne, Southamp-ton, told the Daily Echo: "I was in real pain. I was taking as many painkillers as I could, but they weren't really working.

"I was really frustrated at not being able to play cricket, as it's something I look forward to every season. I had to take a whole year out.

"I went to watch once but that just made it more frustrating for me."

Joe was put on standard arthritis drugs, which worked in the short-term.

But about six months later, the pains were back.

"I could hardly walk. I lost more than two stone and I couldn't do anything," he said.

"There was this throbbing pain in all my joints and they were swelling up."

After being put on another standard drug that had no success, in January 2006 Joe was given a drug called Humira, which blocks the protein responsible for the inflammation.

He says it has turned his life around.

"I no longer look like I have got rheumatoid arthritis - I look like a normal teenager.

"The arthritis does not affect my life at all now and I went back to cricket properly this summer - it was probably my best season ever too."

Joe, who works for Debenhams department store, in Winchester, has to take tablets once a week and has an injection every two weeks.

He is likely to need the £10,000-a-year treatment for the rest of his life.

Dr Chris Edwards, rheumatology consultant at Southampton General Hospital, said: "Rheumatoid arthritis is much worse than people at first thought.

"You can get it when you're five or when you're 95, but it mainly affects people between 20 and 50.

"Over the last ten years, we have realised that, if we treat people early and more aggressively, they do much better in the long-term."