Living

What is a rheumatic disease? A rheumatic disease is an autoimmune and inflammatory condition that causes the body’s immune system to attack a person’s joints, muscles, bones, and organs. There...

For the past few weeks, I have been working my way back into my fitness routine. Before the onset of my AS, I loved pushing my body to its limits...

Axial spondyloarthritis can cause pain, swelling, and stiffness in the back and hips along with other joints such as the knees, shoulder, and feet. The disease does not develop the...

People who have chronic health conditions like ankylosing spondylitis (AS) or axial spondyloarthritis might be advised by their regular doctor or primary care physician to see a specialist known as...

February 27th, 2020 marked the two year anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. I call it my diagnosis-versary. For me, it’s a day that’s just as...

As an AS patient, I've lived in forums and Facebook groups, attended AS support meetings and met or corresponded with all sorts of "AS influencers," if you will. We all...

You’re walking down the street and you run into someone you know. They stop to talk and the first question they ask is: “How are you?” When you have a...

I feel fragile. It doesn’t take much to set me off both physically and mentally right now, and I know it’s because of my progressing AxSpA. My condition seems to...

Editors note: You can read Diana's "How It Feels to Be Young and High-Risk During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Part I" here. As I've delved deeper into the anger I’ve been...

If you know someone with a chronic illness like axial spondyloarthritis, you may have questions. This is a good thing — it likely means you want to better understand and...

I’ve kind of been in a medical limbo since September. My biologic drug, Inflectra (a Remicade biosimilar) has stopped working at the capacity that it used to. We upped me...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that some people in possession of opinions and advice cannot keep these precious "pearls of wisdom" to themselves. Discussions about what other people should do and...

For the past year, I became a bit of a cynic when it came to the positivity movement I'd been seeing all over Facebook and Instagram. It seemed like a...

Before COVID-19, my chances of being able to keep a doctor’s appointment on a day I was having an ankylosing spondylitis flare-up—-even if I’d been waiting to see the doctor...

I have to admit that I rarely feel whole. I know my body is physically whole; in fact, I am in better health today than I was twenty years ago. In...

As I’ve written about before, I’ve lost a lot to AS. One of the things that hurts the most (personally) is losing friends. I had a situation recently that sparked...

Those of us with chronic illnesses know we have a different type of “normal” than people without them. But what happens when we try to do the things we were...

The Berlin Wall came down the night before my thirteenth birthday! Yes, I'm a lady of a certain age. I had a pair of parachute pants and two sets of...

I used to always be a "skinny minny." I never once thought about my weight until I turned about 26. My Sicilian grandmother would say, Mangia, you're too skinny, and...

When diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), I had never heard of it until a chiropractor asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you have AS?” “No; what the heck is...