Living

I was diagnosed with AS in 1999 and told I’d never work again. I went on full benefits – I was even allowed to apply for a car. I felt...

Taltz is not my first biologic on my journey to finding the right treatment. My first biologic was Cimzia, but my rheumatologist believed it stopped working right after my loading...

When we think about foot pain, we often don’t think of it being a common AxSpa symptom, but for me this was one the main symptoms that started to put...

My first birthday being sick was a strange one. I was so unwell. My friends and family made such an effort to make sure I had a special day, a...

This is going to be hard to write — and hard to admit to myself — but I've had to develop real boundaries when it comes to engagement in the...

If you’ve read my other articles, you will know that before I got sick, I was a remarkably busy person. I used to work a lot while being a student in college. I was always...

Music is incredibly important in my life. I began playing from a young age courtesy of a lovingly heavy influence from my incredibly talented grandmother. I started formally taking piano...

Everyone is at a different stage in their AS, which is why I'm recommending these three below ways to move with one clear caveat: Please listen to your body, and...

I have lived with this condition for 30 years now. And I can say it has been a true rollercoaster ride for me filled with many ups and downs. Unfortunately...

Have you had a doctor make you feel like your pain wasn’t real? Or maybe they simplified your treatment by saying something like “this is going to be easily managed...

I’ve changed so much during my 20 years with spondyloarthritis that my 24-year-old self probably wouldn’t know me. She lived a life mostly in denial of her disability. That Dawn...

My life with biologics stretches back six years now. I was diagnosed nearly 15 years after initial symptoms appeared, and since I had been self-medicating with NSAIDs for years (without...

Summer 1999. I am working and earning good money as a self-employed carpenter. The kids are doing well in school and Teresa, my wife, has signed up at our local...

Keeping up with the boundaries and limitations can often be challenging. When everyone we know is out with friends and family, or going for long walks in the trails of...

Cost (noun): something that is given, needed or lost in order to get a particular thing. Living with AxSpA comes at a cost. The explicit costs of living with AxSpA...

The first blessing is the community. This disease can definitely make you feel lonely, crazy, and misunderstood. But finding a community, a group related to your disease, becomes the place...

I am in my early twenties and people are often skeptical when I tell them that I am disabled. In their eyes, I am a young person and therefore deemed...

As many of you already know, AS makes our lives a lot more difficult. Simple everyday tasks, that we once took for granted, become things that exhaust us. Since you are part...

You know about that soul-crushing, relentless, haunting fatigue — the kind of fatigue that makes the walk to the kitchen feel like a marathon? It's the kind of fatigue that...

When the Pandemic hit, we were all sent home from our jobs and schools. For a while things were pretty easy breezy. Wake up when you want, eat when you...