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ankylosing spondylitis

What Does Ankylosing Spondylitis Feel Like? Try This Written Simulation.

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Pro-tip: if you have the opportunity, ask a friend to read this to you while you close your eyes so you can really imagine it.

Hey Spondy,

There’s a thick rigid belt around your hips & a dull pitchfork attached to the inside being pushed firmly against your lower back, forcing your stomach to curve perpetually forward in effort to escape the uncomfortable pressure.

A steel wire strung between your sacroiliac joints (the back of your hips) – drilled into the joints with hot barbed-wire screws – is being slowly tightened across your back, pushing that pitchfork deeper into the base of your spine. It’s progressively aggravating a deep, aching, stabbing pain at the core of your being.

Your body is pulsing with a desire for relief. Anything.

There’s a rope attached to the outside of both hips. It’s being pulled backward, forcing your hips to open slightly outward and making your lower back fold in on itself even more. It’s unnatural, limiting your ability to move your legs. You shuffle step to fight against the simultaneous pushing and pulling from behind. Your hips are fighting to function, but they can really only move a fraction of an inch with each step with this pain and stiffness, so you swing your legs forward to walk. Forward movement is the only option to escape the pressure of the pitchfork, even as you are being pulled from behind.

Large, flat weights are hanging from the front of the belt around your hips, rubbing and rigidly pushing against your thighs, restricting range of motion and weighing down your legs. You can barely lift your legs to push them forward to take a step.

Walking is so hard. Every step hurts more. It’s jarring. Your hips don’t propel you forward, your back doesn’t pull its own weight, your legs are sacks of sand, and you can only manage with an uneven shuffle push-pull of your legs into position. It feels like your spine is settling, crushing in on itself as you jostle it into sediment or quicksand. Or, as Mick Mars puts it, “quick-drying cement growing on the inside of your spine.“ Continue reading What Does Ankylosing Spondylitis Feel Like? Try This Written Simulation. →

ankylosing spondylitis, Heroes

I Talked with Zach, the Try Guy with Ankylosing Spondylitis (Part II)

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Since Zach’s vlog announcement of his Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) diagnosis in September 2017, the video has been viewed over 4.9 million times (as of time of this publication).

In part one of this series I talked about Zach’s story’s impact, the validation that came with his diagnosis, and lessons learned living with a disease that is always beneath the surface.

In part two I dive deeper into Zach’s decision to announce his diagnosis on YouTube, his approach to coping with AS, and whether he calls himself an advocate. Finally, I’ll share his exclusive message to the AS community.

Before I continue, I want to clarify that I am neither doctor nor medical professional. None of the following should be taken as diagnostic, medical or treatment advice. Please consult with your physician before starting, stopping, or changing treatment.

Let’s get started.

Why the video? Continue reading I Talked with Zach, the Try Guy with Ankylosing Spondylitis (Part II) →

ankylosing spondylitis, Heroes

I talked with Zach, the Try Guy with Ankylosing Spondylitis (part I)

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When Try Guys member Zach Kornfeld announced he has Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) in September 2017 I was so relieved.

I know what you’re thinking. Relief sounds super self-centered, so let me say right now that I was also really sad for Zach’s diagnosis; I wouldn’t wish Ankylosing Spondylitis on my worst enemy. But when you live with a common-but-unknown disease, awareness is what you live for.

Well, it’s what I live for anyway. And when a celebrity makes an announcement a lot of people pay attention.

Zach’s video marked the second “Ankylosing Spondylitis coming out” by a celebrity figure in two years (Dan Reynolds announced his in 2015) and it made a big splash in the AS community. Spondylitis Twitter was buzzing. Spondylitis Facebook and Instagram were buzzing, etc etc. It was exciting to see someone talking frankly about AS to a really large audience (as of April 27, 2018 the video had nearly 4.9 million views). Zach was telling all our stories by telling his own and we clung to this moment as a chance to be seen and heard.

Here, let me lay this out for you better.

Ankylosing Spondylitis is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease that can progressively damage joints in the body, especially in the spine, and in some cases cause the spine to fuse into a column of rigid bone. Additionally, AS is a systemic, or whole-body, disease; so it can cause fatigue, cognitive impairment, sleep impairment, and damage multiple organs in the body. There is no cure, so the goal for treatment is to reduce inflammation to slow the progression of the disease and manage symptoms.

Many of us who have AS had never even heard of the disease before a doctor sat us down and opened their mouth to a flood of slow motion gibberish, “You have A n k y l o s a u r a s d i n o s a u r S p o o n d a c t y l a u r u s B l i b b i d y B l o p p i d y B o o.”

Then, as if our disease isn’t hard enough to pronounce, our own friends and family struggle to even understand what we’re experiencing and that it’s serious. And a lot of general practitioners have already forgotten the one paragraph about AS they read during medical school. There are even rheumatologists (the specialists who treat AS) who refuse to diagnose women. More about that another time.

And yet AS affects so many people. Ankylosing Spondylitis falls under an umbrella of diseases called Spondyloarthritis, which affects an estimated 2.7 million people in the USA alone. That’s more than Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)/Lou Gherig’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and Rheumatoid Arthritis combined. Estimates vary regarding the number of people specifically with AS in the US, but it is the most prevalent type of Spondyloarthritis. That’s a LOT of people.

I wish nobody had AS, but since a lot of us do and we largely suffer in silence, Zach’s video was cause for celebration – not for his being diagnosed, but for his willingness to talk about it in front of millions of people.

When I saw his video I knew I wanted to help his story reach more people. I knew I wanted to talk to him.

So six months later I reached out to him about a chronic disease documentary I’m in (shameless plug) and it turned into a Skype interview.

Continue reading I talked with Zach, the Try Guy with Ankylosing Spondylitis (part I) →

Advocacy, ankylosing spondylitis

Giving Back is About More Than Money

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I recently wrote a narrative about my relationship with the Spondylitis Association of America for #MyGivingStory, a campaign that focuses on people’s relationships with giving to nonprofits. The story I submitted was not a finalist, but I believe it deserves a life beyond that campaign.

I still remember calling the Spondylitis Association of America (SAA), declaring, “I’m going to be a poster child for Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS).” I had just been diagnosed with AS – a severe, painful inflammatory disease that mainly affects the spine/low back and can cause bone spurs to fuse joints together, typically in the spine.

As you can imagine extra bone growing in your body that’s not supposed to be there can be quite painful.

Additionally, since AS is systemic it can also damage organs including the eyes, liver, lungs, and more. Over 2.7 million people have Spondyloarthritis (the type of disease AS is) in the United States – that’s more than twice the number of people who have Rheumatoid Arthritis. It’s also more than the number of people who have Lou Gherig’s disease (ALS) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) combined. AS isn’t rare, but it often feels that way.

I was angry. So I became determined to use my physical strength and my pretty face to raise awareness of an ugly disease – I declared I was going to backpack across the country, give speeches, raise money, find a cure, and make Ankylosing Spondylitis a household name. Continue reading Giving Back is About More Than Money →