If you were a research doctor, what aspect of AS would you dig into to find a cure? Would you try to find the reason for calcification of the spine? And then find a way to decalcify it? Or would you try to find something that kills the pain?

Good question.

I would research the autoimmune system and what makes it go wrong in the first place to cause AS, RA, lupus and all those other horrible autoimmune diseases. I would want to find a way to prevent it getting started in the first place.

Ditto with Wendy :}

That's a good idea! I'm not a medical researcher, but that question raised my curiosity, so I started looking around at autoimmune system. What I've found so far is that we don't actually have an autoimmune system, just an immune system. What you get forwarded to when you look up autoimmune system is autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases. This is a start, however.

Here's the first where I found that bit of info.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Autoimmune+system

So I guess we could just say that we would need to find out why the immune system starts attacking the cells of our body causing what are called autoimmune diseases. I wonder if the discoveries of Alan Cantwell have any relation to this.

something that shuts down inflammation without all the side effects of what we currently have.

something that helps regulate the immune system so it functions properly.
currently we have the TNF inhibitors that shut down a portion of it.
but on the flip side there is a lot of talk about things that boost the immune system. they used to think autoimmunity and autoinflammation were an exuberant immune system, now they think its just one out of balance.

better healing of the gut, for those of us, where it most likely starts.

Something that cleans up what causes inflammation is proteolytic enzymes. There are a ton of different brands, so if one has something in it that you don't want, you can just look for another one. I was just reading at www.roadback.org, and a lot of people there with autoimmune diseases are using them.

I was looking around for something for alopecia for a friend of mine, and yesterday I saw a few references to ashwagandha being good for that. Today while I was looking for something to print out for my friend I found this article.

http://www.herbalsafari.com/2011/09/ashwagandha-herb-benefits.html

See how it says that it appears to have both immunosuppressive and immunotonic abilities and is therefore a true adaptogen. I probably should expand on this, but I'm too tired.

maybe the timing was just wrong, but when i tried proteolytic enzymes, my IBS became much much worse. maybe another would have worked, but i didn't want to risk it.

Yeah, I don't blame you.