Ankylosing Spondylitis - The Arthritic Condition That Raised My Interest in Natural Health
Ankylosing spondylitis is an arthritic condition which has a tendency to affect men rather than women, although it affects both. Unusually amongst types of arthritis it is most likely to affect young men, rather than older men, although some men do not experience any symptoms before middle age.
My First Ankylosing Spondylitis Symptoms
I was living in South London, my birth place, when I first noticed stiffness and numbness sitting down for long spells. As a 17 year old student, I had to sit in classrooms much of the day. In the evenings, I did have an active social life, but also spent some evenings studying (rarely) and writing fiction (often). "Numb bum" I used to call it.
"Numb bum" was not with me all the time, nor was the lower back pain that followed over the next couple of years. I did not think of it as an illness as such, nor a condition; it was just there sometimes. At the age of 20, I still went traveling around Europe, sleeping in tents, on beaches or even at the side of the road. I did so without feeling any adverse reactions.
Back in England, and working in central London after a daily commute, the pains quickly worsened and spread throughout my spine and hip joints. The back pain, some nights especially, was excruciating; only someone who has experienced that level of pain understands how it can be.
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I was living at my mother's flat, and after one night of hearing me constantly yell out in pain, she called our general practitioner. I slept in a room next to the bathroom, and wanting to wash and shave before the doctor arrived, I got out of bed. I had to crawl on hands and knees to get to the bathroom, and what was a second's walk must have taken 10-15 minutes; agonizing minutes.
The doctor arrived while I was shaving, grumpy as hell. He was a very nasty man. After running his knuckles up and down my spine, as if her some sort of magic diagnostic machine, he left the bathroom, saying nothing to me, the patient.
"There's nothing wrong with him" he told my mother, although he condescended to write a prescription for whatever it was I did not have.
After a few weeks, I was referred to an orthopedic specialist. There was always some pain, occasionally extreme, and sometimes I had some difficulty in walking. However, I did manage to get to my several appointments with the specialist, who was as unpleasant as the GP. He took all the usual tests and X rays. On one visit I mentioned the word exercise and he got angry with me; on another, he laid me on my front, and without warning me manipulated my hip joint back into position.
That "specialist" never told me what I had that was causing me this agony; making it so difficult to walk, lie, sit or do anything when the pain was too bad. He knew, but he did not tell me; nor did my GP. Those two doctors easily rank as the worst I have ever encountered. Ten years later I would have filed complaints against both; but I was a young innocent then.
