Hello, and welcome to 2020. This is The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast and my name is Jayson Sacco and thank you for joining me today. You know, as many do on this first day of the year, I've been reflecting on my life and my interactions with Ankylosing Spondylitis. You know, I've been dealing with Ankylosing Spondylitis and its effects on me for about four decades now. And in those four decades, there are many things I could have done much better that might not have put me in the position I'm in now, and those items will discuss over the upcoming year in different episodes.

But first the Question of the Week. This week, I’ve seen quite a bit on the forums on Facebook dealing with Ankylosing Spondylitis, and chiropractic care. Now, I'll tell you first that the reason I was diagnosed and found out what was going on was due to a chiropractor. He had worked on me for a number of years as a child and just said, I can't figure out exactly what's going on because he's not responding to generally what we should you know, be seeing as results from the treatments he's done. So it was because of him that I was referred to, you know, a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with Ankylosing Spondylitis for that, it turned out great. But fast forward to now, you know, 40 years later with the level of my Ankylosing Spondylitis is, and the amount of fusing that I have going to a chiropractor would be the wrong thing to do. And so you have to remember that there's no one fit scenario for all of us. As a general rule, the Spondylitis Association of America recommends that you do not have chiropractic care done. That is because you may have a chiropractor that's completely unfamiliar with Ankylosing Spondylitis, and what their adjustments you know, may or may not do. So like everything else with Ankylosing Spondylitis, it's really going to be dependent upon each individual. If you have very little to no fusing and you're just in the process of discovering what Ankylosing Spondylitis is, and your chiropractor is completely familiar with Ankylosing Spondylitis, it may be okay. But again as a general rule, the farther you are into AS, the less likely that you should be probably visiting with a chiropractor and stick more along the lines of traditional medicine routines. For other countries, the guidelines may be slightly different or completely different. Always check what the chiropractor knows about Ankylosing Spondylitis, the familiarity they have with it and just make sure they don't try to adjust your neck or crack at or snap it or anything like that, that can cause you additional pain or even worse, maybe even paralysis. So anyway, again, this one is going to be real simple. It's just chiropractic care should I or shouldn’t I is really dependent upon each individual so you are the only one that can make that call? Just know in the United States the general rule is no chiropractic care for anybody with Ankylosing Spondylitis. 

Now, the article that I kind of was reading through for this week's episode, (it’s found on healthline.com) is called Nine Resources for Ankylosing Spondylitis Support. We talked about some support in the previous episode and I'd like to cover that, again, with Ankylosing Spondylitis, and I've experienced this myself, you can very easily fall into the trap of isolating yourself due to pain. Even in a household of people, you can isolate yourself. And so where do you turn for support? Where do you turn for assistance in the day to day activities of dealing with Ankylosing Spondylitis could be a spouse, but then there's those of us who are not married or dating that don't have a spouse or partner to turn to. So you've kind of got to look at the different options. And here's nine of what is available. 

Number one, Message Boards. You know, there are places like the Spondylitis Association of America, and they have a message board....