Alternative Treatments For Ankylosing Spondylitis Relief

I am so grateful for my ankylosing spondylitis medication. It has successfully reduced many of my symptoms and helped me get a lot of my life back. Unfortunately, it doesn’t completely render all symptoms of AS obsolete.

Consequently, I often find myself exploring alternatives that will supplement my medication and further alleviate my pain, stiffness, and fatigue. I thought I’d share a few of these alternative treatments for ankylosing spondylitis with you.

Alternative treatments I've tried

Moxibustion

I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of this one. To be honest, if I hadn’t been diagnosed in China, then I doubt I would have come across it either. The nurse at the school where I was working gifted me a moxibustion set when she saw me struggling with a nasty flare.

The moxibustion kit includes a belt that you wrap around the area giving you pain. The belt has little pockets in which you place a metal pod. In this pod there is a space to put a spongy block of traditional herbs which you then light and close up.

The idea is that the traditional medicine will smoke out the pain from the affected area. In case my mansplaining is way too confusing, here’s a link showing how it works (please excuse my lockdown hairstyle).

I was very doubtful that this would have any impact, but whether the smoke worked its magic or I was simply intoxicated from the fumes, I actually felt a lot of relief. It takes a lot of spoons to set up, so I don’t use it often. But when I feel like giving myself a bit of fancy pain relief, I will whip out my moxibustion set.

Acupuncture

The practice of having someone shove needles into specific areas of the body is probably a more well-known treatment. I have had acupuncture 3 times from 3 different clinicians, using 3 different techniques which gave me 3 different results!

The first one opted to screw and twist the needles into my body as if he were assembling some Ikea furniture. I felt no relief whatsoever afterwards, but I didn’t want to give up, so I went back for another try. 

The second acupuncturist had a unique style of flicking the needles inside me as if he were playing Subbuteo. Oddly enough, this technique worked wonders for me, and I felt a lot of relief for an entire week. When I returned for another round, The Flicker had sadly left the practice. 

The third needle nurse favored the old school way of simply inserting needles into the skin with minimal twisting or flicking. I got about a day’s worth of relief before the effects began to fade.

As hit-or-miss as it was for me, I do recommend giving it a try, just in case you get lucky with a talented acupuncturist and your body reacts well to being treated like a voodoo doll!

Remedies from other cultures

I have always loved living in a city as diverse as London. This has allowed me to meet people from all over the world and learn about their cultures. When I became chronically ill, I went from enquiring about traditional foods to finding out about pain relief methods.

As luck would have it, my godmother actually makes traditional Indian ointments. I have also built up a collection of creams and balms from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and pretty much everywhere else in between! Of course, not all of them have worked well, but it is all about doing a bit of experimentation to find what is right for you and your body.

My personal favourite so far has been a spray from St. Lucia that’s hard to source. So, my usual go-to is Tiger Balm, a topical balm that creates warmth. My joints have a frustrating habit of ballooning up with inflammation, so this is when I tend to massage these into my swollen body. I find that it increases my mobility and reduces pain whilst also making me smell divine.

Have you tried any alternative treatments for ankylosing spondylitis? Let me know in the comment section below.