Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast. I hope this day is finding everybody doing fantastic, healthy and hanging in there as we all across the globe deal with the Covid-19 epidemic that's going on. So with today's episode of first off, I wanted to thank everybody recently, like few days ago, the show crossed a total of 20,000 downloads in total and it's still climbing spread across 83 different countries. Talk about bringing the Ankylosing Spondylitis community together. You know, I keep hearing from people across different countries and organizations and groups that all deal with Ankylosing Spondylitis and so it's really really cool to see everybody together and interacting on the different Facebook forums and talking and trading stories about how AS is affecting them. With that said, Today, I thought it would talk about myths and facts related to Ankylosing Spondylitis.

You know, AS is a chronic condition, and it can be very difficult to explain to others, you know, as soon as you tell somebody, it's a autoimmune disease, they kind of maybe look at you not knowing what that means. Or if you tell them, it's a type of arthritis, they'll say, “Oh, yeah, my grandmother has arthritis.” Well, it's great that they're trying to relate, it's not exactly getting the point across to them that we hope to get across and so that's resulted in, you know, a lot of misconceptions about the disease and what the disease does to us. Heck, it even applies internally, because none of us get the disease the same. So what affects me generally probably doesn't affect anybody else, the same way to the same magnitude, and vice versa. They can have something that's very, very debilitating to them and it's really of no issue to me. So we gathered kind of some lists of myths, and I'll try to debunk those for you related to my Ankylosing Spondylitis that I hope you turn around and think about those myths and how they relate to your Ankylosing Spondylitis and how it may be beneficial or helpful when you try to explain what you're dealing with to others. 

Number One-Myth AS only affects your back. Well, we know that's not the case for everybody. When you talk about Ankylosing Spondylitis, they always talk about the main feature of as is that it affects your spine. And one of the main signs of the disease is inflammation of the joints between your spine and pelvis, you know, your sacroiliac joints, so inflammation can spread to the rest of your spine. It can go to lower back pain and stiffness or common symptoms, especially when you get up in the morning. But as is not confined to just your back though it can spread to other joints including shoulders, ribs, hips, knees, feet, or even, you know, up to 40% of people that have Ankylosing Spondylitis will get some form of iritis or, you know, issue of inflammation in the eyes. Now with my case, my Ankylosing Spondylitis came on extremely fast and hard when I was young in my hips. So by the time I was 21, and then 23, I had had hip replacements done. So I ended up with bilateral hip replacements by the age of 23. It wasn't until much later on that my spine started to become really affected. And now as I've aged, most of the Ankylosing Spondylitis has progressed up my spine, and now affects my neck. And so I take a biologic medicine, I take Cosentyx at this time, and I'm hoping that keeps it at bay from fusing my neck anymore than my neck already is fused. But I've got your classic Ankylosing Spondylitis posture. When I stand I'm hunched over and I'm looking at the ground in front of me not directly in front of me when I walk with my cane. So everybody's gonna be different. You may get it more pronounced in your ribs, or your knees or wherever. But think about that, as you explain it to somebody that will it does affect your spine and most likely will affect it at some point. There could be other areas of your body that are dramatically...