Stand Tall.

Yesterday I was diagnosed with AS.

AS is Ankylosing Spondylitis, and defined as;

  A type of chronic arthritis of the spine and the sacroiliac joints (in the pelvis). The inflammation of the vertebrae (spondylitis) can eventually lead to the fusion of the vertebrae - they cement together (ankylosis). This type of chronic arthritis affects the bones, muscles and ligaments. The long-term inflammation in the spine and sacroiliac joints cause severe pain and stiffness in the spinal area.

If you would like to know more, please do look it up. It is one of those silent diseases such as MS or Cancer, that no one sees until you are crippled or incapable. 

Anyways, what AS means to me, is a lifestyle change. I finally have a face  to put on the pain I have been feeling for the past months.

Sometimes its hard for people to understand how I'm feeling as I'm only 22, they feel that I shouldn't know this pain, that I'm exaggerating or that I'm lying. Most of the time when people ask me whats wrong and I say that my back hurts or whatever, I get told to buck up, or get over it, or stop lying.

Now I can cay I have AS, and today its bothering me. 

I have another two months or so to go before I get to see my specialist, so I've decided to be proactive, I'm going to find a physiotherapist, get a swim pass (I've done a lot of reading in the past two days that says swimming is excellent for sufferers of AS), find a naturopath, and change my diet. 

Its going to be hard battle until I find a proper combination of things to keep the pain down/stop the pain.
I'd prefer not to take the medications that cause liver failure and MS and heart disease and heart failure until i absolutely have to, so my answer is to do everything I possibly can until I am forced to take the medications.

I find marijuana helps the pain, activity keeps me from being stiff,  mornings are the worst and with help I will be able to function as I used to. I'm thinking possibly swimming twice a week and yoga one to two times a week, but before I start yoga I would like to talk to the specialist to verify that it is acceptable activity for a person with AS.

I'm not whining if that is what you think this is, this is hope for the future, some days from here on out, they will be about pain, but whether or not anyone reads this, I'm going to chronical this journey, and if over the course of time if it helps anyone, then I will be glad, and even if no one ever sees this... at the very least I have a release and way to voice my pain and frustrations, my failures and success and every stop in between.


-S