 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No, it's not a kind of dinosaur. :)
Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is a spinal condition whereby the vertebrae weaken and continue to grow together, causing a stiffening of the spine. "Ankylosing" means "stiffening," "Spondyl" means "spinal" and "itis" means "inflammation." (Inflammation means "it hurts.")
Treatment consists primarily of exercising carefully and maintaining correct posture so that, as the spinal cord stiffens, you aren't "stuck" in a crooked, bent position. Most people with AS continue to lead a normal life. There is an increased risk of injury because of "calcification" (which causes bones to become more brittle), so contact sports and heavy labour should be avoided.
A.S. can be extremely painful. I personally try to avoid taking painkillers but sometimes it is unavoidable; the pain from A.S. tends to get worse after you've been sitting for a long time and at the end of the day when your body's tired. A doctor may prescribe Naproxen, an anti-inflammatory which works rather well. It is an ulcerative, however, so it isn't a good idea to take it often unless you have to.
For over the counter medications, don't bother with acetylsalycic acid (Asparin) or acetomenophen (Tylenol); in my experience neither will put a dent in the pain. Ibuprofin (Advil) has worked best of the non-prescription drugs I've tried.
Be sure to check with your doctor before trying any new medication. A drug that works for me might not work for you, and a drug that is harmless to me might be toxic to your body chemistry. This is especially true when you're taking many different medications at once...you have to be very, very wary of harmful side effects. Don't just assume that your doctor knows what you're taking -- always be sure to tell her.
I was only recently diagnosed with AS, but have suffered from its effects since I was 15 or so. The pain first manifested itself as acute sciatica...meaning very sharp pain along the sciatic nerve that runs behind each leg. The pain was often difficult to pinpoint, sometimes focused strongly on my hip, sometimes in my lower back, and other times darting all along the leg. It would switch sides sometimes, too. At one point I couldn't move even an inch in bed without asking my Grandmother to lift the sheets up off my legs, and even then the pain was almost unbearable.
When I first sought a reason for the pain I was told "it was all in my head." This went on for years, and despite several x-rays, CT scans, and visits to specialists, a positive diagnosis was never made.
That made me wary of doctors, and I sought alternate treatments, none of which worked. When I met Michelle, she came along to witness one of my regular chiropractic adjustments, and the site frightened her. She urged me to see her doctor, who finally made the A.S. diagnosis. After researching A.S. on the web, I thought I was able to recognize its effects in my own x-rays. That really made me wonder why the chiropractors had been unable to see the same in the x-rays they had taken.
A blood test can be performed to help determine whether you have A.S. It checks whether the gene HLA-27B is active. Unfortunately, testing positive for HLA-27B doesn't mean you have A.S. -- although a large percentage of people diagnosed with A.S. do test positive for the gene. Incidentally, the same gene is also thought to be responsible for psoriosis.
After so many years of "it's all in your head," I wasn't too sure about the A.S. diagnosis. Typical of western medicine, the term "Ankylosing Spondylitis" describes the condition, and not the nature or cause of the disease. Doctor's typically don't care what is causing your spine to stiffen painfully...once they pin it on A.S., they suggest the standard course of treatment (painkillers and exercise), and that's that.
Doctors typically are taught to treat symptoms, rather than to seek the root causes of disease. The problem with this is, it's possible the same symptoms could be caused by very different things. You and I could both test "positive" for A.S., but our spines might be stiffening painfully for different reasons.
On a visit to my optometrist I learned some very interesting information. For some reason I really wanted to tell him about my Ankylosing Spondylitis...the thought that I should kept popping into my mind the whole week before my eye checkup. When I told him about being diagnosed with A.S. he gave me a sideways look. It turns out he was also diagnosed with A.S. about 17 years ago.
Wait a minute. My optometrist is about as healthy a person as you can imagine. How could he have Ankylosing Spondylitis?
Like me, he'd been told for years that he was imagining his pain, and sought treatment from various doctors before stumbling on the AS diagnosis. At the time he was in so much pain that he was remodelling his house for wheelchair access! He also said it had put a great strain on his marriage because he was so miserable with the pain.
Then he saw a guest on Donahue who had written a book about arthritis very often not being what it seems. In many cases, he claimed, it was a result of food allergies, combined with sensitivity to the group of plants known as "nightshades." Eliminating these plants -- notably tomatoes, potatoes, egg plant and all peppers except the black and white variety -- resulted in significant improvement and often complete reversal of arthritis symptoms in 70% of arthritic patients who tried it.
My optometrist had been fairly skeptical of his A.S. diagnosis, since as he mentioned there is no test that can confirm it with certainty, and the term A.S. really only describes the symptoms, not the cause of the disease. He decided to try the no-nightshades diet, and after reading more about nutrition's role in disease eliminated red meat and dairy products as well.
After 6 months on the diet he ran a marathon.
He hasn't suffered from A.S. in the 17 years since. He said that when he cheats sometimes and eats one of the foods he found he was allergic to, the symptoms return not long afterward.
I was amazed. Maybe that chiropractor wasn't so far off base when he suggested it might be an allergy. Maybe there was a reason why he hadn't recognized A.S. on my x-rays. Maybe this could explain why I had pain here, then there, then somewhere else, so long before I had any stiffening. I decided to do some research into the matter.
I'm still reading. Some of it seems a bit incredible, but a lot of what I've read so far makes perfect sense. The more I look into my past, the more clues I find that support the possibility my Ankylosing Spondilitis is in fact a food allergy in disguise.
Food Allergies
I've (almost) eliminated the nightshades from my diet -- potatoes and tomatoes have been difficult to give up completely, but the cravings I get for them are a strong indication of allergy, since we're usually addicted to the things we're allergic to. A food allergy is basically an inability to process that food, usually because we lack the enzymes (or the nutrients required to fabricate the enzymes) that are needed to break the food down into its constituent parts. Because we can't process it properly, we don't get what we need from it -- and so our body continues to crave, telling us we still need something in that food.
It's interesting to note that most foods contain the enzymes we need to break them down. So how could we ever become allergic to something? One of the reasons we don't have these enzymes is because they don't survive cooking or pasteurization. When we heat our food, the enzymes are destroyed. Since most of us aren't eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables (if any), our bodies have to draw upon their own stores of enzymes -- enzymes which then need to be replaced. Unless our bodies are getting the nutrients they need to build these enzymes from scratch, we may end up unable to break our food down. If I understand the books I've been reading, it's this unprocessed food that is the root cause of food allergies.
I try to eat healthily, but I have a lot of junk food habits to break. Eliminating the nightshades from my diet has helped -- I'm still very stiff, but I rarely have to take anything to manage my pain. I've found that tomatoes and peppers are the worst...I can get away with eating potatoes more often than tomatoes, but even a little bit of pepper causes me to stiffen up. Often when I cheat I can feel my back stiffen very quickly...the stiffness spreads out like frost on a window, radiating out from my lower back. Sometimes I'll suddenly feel weak or dizzy, too.
I haven't even bothered trying to give up red meat...I almost think I'd rather have A.S. than give up hamburgers. But I've removed a lot of the dairy foods from my diet. Not completely, but enough to be a factor, I hope.
I'm also supplementing my diet with vitamins and Sterinol (a plant steroid that helps balance and boost our immune system) which has also had a small but noticeably positive effect.
The thing I'm lacking the most right now is exercise. I tend to work, rest and play on computers...and I've never been one to exercize for the point of exercising. I need to feel like I'm accomplishing something. Michelle and I go for walks, and cross-country ski in the winter, but weather and busy schedules keep that exercise from being regular enough. I'll have to figure some way to incorporate exercise into my daily routine so I can form it into a habit.
I'm planning to document my journey back to health, and will put as much information as I can on the web. If you have any questions about this or have tried eliminating nightshades from your diet, I'd love to hear from you.
If you'd like more information on A.S., here are some of the places I found helpful:
Ankylosing Spondylitis Club
Chris Love's Ankylosing Spondylitis Page
EnAble Center for Ankylosing Spondylitis
Medical Sites
The Arthritis Society
Note: Some of these links might have fallen from the web. I'll try to update the list when I can.
Last modified: November 15, 2003
All text, sounds, graphics and files at this site are ©1995-2002 Lorne Laliberte (lorne@cdnwriter.com)