Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is an autoimmune disease. It's a form of arthritis that primarily affects the spine but other joints can be involved. In my case, I'm currently only feeling it in my SI Joints (lower back/upper butt) perhaps because I caught it early enough. It just hurts to sit at times and feels like a literal pain in the butt/lower back. It causes inflammation of the vertebrae and over time can actually cause some of the vertebrae in your spine to fuse together. Basically in autoimmune diseases, your immune system is mistakenly attacking joint cells.

I'm still kind of in shock because I'm in my early 30's and I've always been healthy and active. I don't drink alcohol, smoke and I've always followed a pretty healthy diet. So this kind of hit me out of left field. It's really kind of frustrating too because even my rheumatologist said I didn't fit all the usual signs of having AS and I was a pretty atypical case scenario (no back pain, no fatigue, decent flexibility). I'm actually pretty scared too...I'll have to take injections for medicine for the rest of my life and although you can still lead a mostly normal life it just sucks knowing I'll never be the same again. I didn't post this for sympathy and to make myself feel better....I just needed to vent. I consider this community as a family of mine with as much time I spend here so just thought it would help to share.

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