Living

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

I'm sitting here at lunch on a Friday thinking about how I'm going to get through the next 12 hours. I know what's coming. Dinner needs to happen. Kids need...

Disabled individuals endure many challenges throughout life. Living with an illness is exhausting both physically and mentally from a range of symptoms, attending a handful of appointments, and reoccurring flare-ups...

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...