A Day In The Life Of Someone With Ankylosing Spondylitis

One thing I find most people don’t understand when learning about AS is the fact that it affects every aspect of our lives. Daily life is made so much more difficult due to pain and fatigue. So, I decided to write a “day in the life” style article. Keep in mind, this is just a day in my life with AS, everyone’s experiences with AS are different.

The “morning”

Right now I can’t work due to my AS. This gives me the wonderful luxury of being able to sleep in pretty much every day. Honestly, thank god for that. Every single morning since my symptoms first appeared, I get up somewhere between 6-9 am to pee and I can’t get back to sleep. Mostly because I’m in pain and my body never lets me forget about that. It takes me a few hours to be able to fall back asleep, and then I officially wake up somewhere around noon.

My day starts at 12:30 pm. I eat something (usually small) and spend time with my cat, Cora. She’s a year and a half old, so she’s still extremely energetic and therefore exhausting. She loves to play, so on days when I have the energy, I try to play with her as often as possible.

I finally make my way upstairs to shower with the stairs being extra tiring today. Lately, I find that any amount of stairs kind of tires me out, not to mention standing in the shower for 10+ minutes. After my shower, I weirdly have a small pocket of energy, so I decide to blast my music and sing. Afterward, I quickly lose all energy and go lie in bed with my heating pad and my laptop.

Midday

Today I’ve made plans to meet a friend for dinner. I’m not really social anymore due to my fatigue, but I haven’t seen this friend in a while and want to go out. I stay in bed until the last possible minute, and then get up and get ready.

I hurriedly get dressed and do an okay makeup job, and I’m out the door in half an hour. Now, I don’t drive, so I bus in the freezing cold for an hour to get to the restaurant.

Once we’re there, I order an appetizer for dinner because I already know I won’t be able to eat much. I order calamari and don’t even get halfway through my food before feeling nauseous.

The evening

After we finish eating we decide to go shopping at the mall. Usually, a trip to the mall is the one activity I can do in a day, but I feel like pushing myself to be normal, so I go.

I quickly become drained from being around so many people. My energy level is at a minimum and I’m nauseous from dinner. It’s time to go home.

Once I get home I’m exhausted. I don’t have the energy to do anything else for the night. Not play with Cora, not even go on my laptop. I’m spent.

I decide to go to bed semi-early, but of course, I can’t sleep because I’m in pain. And so the cycle begins.

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