Today's episode is brought to you by the letters AS

Time to bring you up to speed on life with Ankylosing Spondylitis.

The good news is the "cure" for Ulcerative Colitis left me with only one painful chronic inflammatory disease - it was absolutely devastating to deal with two at the same time. I didn't have much of a life for those ten years when UC and AS ruled.

Don't sit if you can stand, don't stand up if you can lie down.

First piece of advice from very first rheumatologist I saw regarding having AS. Sitting is hard enough on the spine for people who aren't inflicted with spinal arthritis. It is brutal on those of us with AS. There is a tendency to stoop forward to relieve the pain - which can lead to a permanently hunched posture if your spine fuses in that pose. That is the challenge of AS.

Unlike other forms of arthritis, the inflammation of AS causes the tendons and ligaments that hold your spinal structure together to turn into bone and fuse your vertebra together. Once that happens you lose mobility and your spine is at a greater risk of fracture. I have a spot or two in my spine where this is happening. The good news is once the fusion happens the pain is gone. The bad news is once the fusion happens there is no unfusing and your mobility is gone forever.

Fortunately, for me at least, AS responds very well to exercise and I have to make that commitment to keep moving. Move it or lose it. The reality is tendons and cartilage do not have a blood supply so the only way to get nutrients in and waste products out is movement - forcing the issue as it were. The real challenge is moving when you are in pain. AS causes pain. Exercise can cause pain. There is pain. Rock, me, hard place.

And with the antidepressant I am on because of being in chronic pain for over 15 years I can't take anti-inflammatory medication without risking a bleeding ulcer. And seeing as I can't give blood or get blood - more on this in another post - I can't risk losing any of my hemoglobin. Acetaminophen helps, but it has its risks, too and it doesn't do much when there is a full-scale flare up like last week.

I wrote a mid-term exam lying on the classroom floor.

The downside to being a university student is sitting in lectures. Not the lecture part, for the most part they are interesting and stimulating. It's the sitting part. No such thing as ergonomic seating arrangements at my university. By about mid-October my AS is in full rebellion mode at having to deal with hours upon hours in a chair. Mid-October is also mid-term exam time.

I wrote my second mid-term exam sitting on the classroom floor.

I normally write my exams at the disability services centre - the ladies there rock and are incredibly supportive. However the reality of having a disability - invisible or otherwise - is the first time my profs see me is at the start of the semester when I appear at their offices with accommodation letters to be signed for the DSC. The second time they see me is when I appear at their offices with letters of accommodation to write exams in the DSC - I am allowed extra time and the use of a computer for essay based exams. The computer use is a great help but no amount of extra time will compensate for pain.

This means I am absent from the class during exam time. During the earlier years of classes this is not an issue, there are a lot of students doing similar courses for different programs. However you reach 4th year classes and there are fewer students so it's obvious when someone isn't there. And I always get a bit of 'tude about getting extra time for exams.

So this year I'm taking a different tack for at least a few of my exams and lectures. If I am in pain, rather than suffering silently I will make my situation accommodate me. I'll sit on the floor if I have to. I'll lay on the floor if I have to. I want my cohorts to see what life with an invisible disability looks like. I don't want pity, I want understanding.

I think the flare up is subsiding. I slept like Rip van Winkle these past few days just to catch up on the restless sleep I had during the week when pain had me tossing and turning. And my concentration is returning, which is a good sign considering I have a mountain of homework to do.

Tomorrow I start training towards running a 10k in February as my contribution to the Iceman. It will feel good to get moving towards a goal again, I need that. And I'll start swimming, too.

I want to do a triathlon next summer. And maybe climb a mountain.

See you on the trails,
Barb

If your ass hurts, quit sitting on it and get moving!

Well beyond the recovery stage from MOMAR and time to get moving again. I can tell because my hips hurt and I'm having back spasms. Curse you AS!

I can swallow pain meds until my stomach churns but by far the best treatment I've found is exercise. Motion, movement, blood flow, oxygen, tissues stretched and strengthened. The curse of being an undergrad - hours spent in chairs hunched over books and journal articles and computer screens. I'm sure the human body was not designed to sit in chairs.

I've a few months to go until the Iceman in February so I can take some time to power walk a good base and start running harder and longer distances. Good thing I have an iTouch with loads of memory 'cause running that track at the NSC is going to get really boring really fast. Ah, but there is always snowshoeing! Oh, wait, we need snow. That will come soon enough.

I love that post-exercise feeling. It's a great sense of accomplishment.

See you on the trails,
Barb