I have also been very lucky with GP's. I was diagnosed straight away by a GP. I went in complaining of buttock pain that had mysteriously switched sides and was immediately blood tested, confirmed HLA-B27 positive and diagnosed with AS.

When I mentioned that I was interested in trying alternative treatments as I had read that the ones available weren't very good my GP was again very supportive and said "sometimes the conventional medicines aren't always the best way to treat these things". They even had my blood type tested in case I wanted to try the blood type diet.

When I was in Canada the GP there was super helpful and tried to get me an appointment with a rheumy and when that wasn't available she went to the extra effort of calling up a rheumy to discuss my situation on the phone and was able to advise me on what the rheumy had recommended.

I went to a different GP a couple of weeks ago to get my CRP and ESR tested to make sure that they were still low as I hadn't had them checked for 6 months. Came back CRP undetectable and ESR = 2 (personal best). I explained that I had done extensive research on the net and used diet and other alternative treatments to get my AS under control and she said "Well you'll know much more about it than me then" and was happy to have me blood tested for candida as I really wanted to make sure that I didn't have it.

There we go, a pro doctor rant. I should probably add that I don't think any of the treatments that they prescribed helped me in the long run and I improved significantly once I stopped taking NSAID's but I don't think its a GP's fault that they don't know much about AS. All the GP's I've been to were all genuinely nice people who tried to help me as much as they could.

My experience with rheumy's is not as bad as Wendy's but I think that because they are supposed to be "expert" in autoimmune and rheumatic diseases they tend to think that they know much more than anyone else does and are less willing to accept alternative theories or treatments. In saying that though my rheumy said that he was happy for me to experiment with diet but that he couldn't offer me any evidence that it would be effective which I think is a fair assessment. Obviously they have extensive medical training but their actual day to day job seems to be rather simple - confirm diagnosis by using a symptoms checklist + diagnostic blood test criteria. Then go through the drug prescription algorithm which is drug A, then drug A+B, then drug A+B+C. If that doesn't work then set up an appointment with a pain management specialist. Perhaps that's being a bit harsh, I think that they mean well but are severely limited by the lack of research, evidence and treatments that they have to work this.