Living

I’ve been thinking about all the things in my life that help me stay positive and happy. Happiness is tough to pin down. I’m sure I read somewhere that most...

When I was first diagnosed with AS, I felt like I was drowning in terror and information overload that I’d acquired by going down the internet rabbit hole. My partner...

The Bob Seger tune "Like a Rock" came on my music player as I walked the other day. It got me thinking of the number of references in popular music about...

Ankylosing spondylitis (and any other chronic illness for that matter) can happen to anyone. It doesn’t care if you’re a new college student or a single working mom of three...

I left off Part 1 of my diagnosis story just before I was forced to wheel myself onto a flight back to the UK. I bid farewell to all of...

Before I tell you about my experience on Cimzia, I want you to know that everybody is different, we will all react differently to medicine. What works for me, might...

Living with chronic illness means constantly feeling like you are tending to something, whether that be your physical body and its very real and always-present pain, or the deluge of...

It’s roughly twenty years since I first noticed my symptoms. Eight years later I would finally hear them referred to as clear indicators that I had ankylosing spondylitis. During those...

As I’ve got older, I’ve become less inhibited about certain things. I’d always believed (naively perhaps) a person got more inhibited as they aged. Not less. But maybe it’s the...

If you are anything like me, sleep is vital to your existence and it is non-negotiable for my pain management. And while I can sit here and say this now...

Living with condition like AS is not as simple as taking medicine and getting on with it. Medication can only do so much. I'm very grateful for how well my...

I've lived in New York City for nearly 20 years — and for most of it, nature was just not a priority to me. I relished the cement jungle and...

Do you know what brain fog is? Maybe you have it, you just don’t know the term. Brain fog is characterized by forgetfulness, confusion, and a general lack of mental...

It’s a misconstrued assumption that those who have spent years with an illness eventually unlock some secret in managing it. I’m here to say that simply just isn’t true. There...

Living on a tropical island can surely be of great benefit during summer time. All the heat and high temperature makes you want to spend the day on the beach...

Let’s talk specialty physicians. If you grimaced at the thought of having this conversation, you probably have had the same experience that it seems like almost everyone in the AS...

One thing that became extremely clear to me since I have joined the community is the difference in how everybody experiences AS. No journey is the same and everybody has...

As I have been walking this summer, I have encountered two great new friends, and while neither of them has arthritis (at least that I know of), they provide some...

When I first got diagnosed with AS, I felt distraught. But I was very lucky to have someone in my life who is not only a medical professional but a total support to me...

I knew — in some intuitive way — that I had ankylosing spondylitis (or something similar) about a decade before I got my diagnosis. I knew it when my eyes...