Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion Sporting ASKickers Am I making myself worse?

Oh...thanks for this! I'm going to add this to my nightly stretching.



I want more of that too!

Keep us posted Tink!
I can only echo what most everyone said which is listen to you body. and modify what you have to modify. When working with intense classes that vary each time it's also good to work up to in least 2x a week...IF possible. It helps even if it doesnt seem that way at the moment. The owner of the KRav I go to used to tell us that. I didnt believe it. But it was true. When we missed more than a couple of classes...you'd back track. Your body would literally be starting over.

I still cant touch my toes...will never be able to. lol. Cant do alot of the stuff. I slow down. I cant do high knee jogging. I cant do alot. But I can keep moving. On the EXTRA bad days I just take it easy. They've talked to us about getting our heart rate up...and thats when you really start to feel your energy level shoot up out of nowhere. Kind of hard to explain. They told us the last 15 min of class where the most important and where you'd burn the most calories. But they also bring us back down properly. Today was one of those days...I thought surely I was in a nightmare. lol But afterwards...tired. full of sweat but i felt good. a sore good. tonight i'll hobble. but for one hour i was superbug!

keep up the good work!! proud of you!! luv buggie!

Thanks Buggie

Well the decision about my exercise class has been taken out of my hands now.

Went to see my doctor with my DX notes and he has referred me to a Rheumy. The appointment is in January. He has told me to stop the exercise class for the time being and asked me to drop the NSD until I have the appointment too. He wants a clear picture of what my situation, without anything else skewing results so to speak.

I am trying to walk as often as I can and do plenty of stretching.

I totally agree with you about how missing a class sets you back... and two classes a week are definitely better than one. I hope I can go back to my class again in the New Year.

I am going to post about the NSD thing in the diet section.

Thanks for your support, hon, it means a lot to me

I have heard that from my sister, that her rheumy wants her to come to her visits as she is. Without any internal or external modification. I hope you take the pain map! Probably I've already told you this, but I took three separate pain maps with me. One for bad days, one for average days, and one for spectacular days. I also used yellow, orange, and red highlighters to make clear where my worst pain spots were. Red worst - yellow least. And I didn't swim or stretch or anything before he saw me. It was weird, because even though I'm ANA+ and my sister has lupus, he zeroed right in on my inflexible spine and sacrum pain. All along I'd been saying my hip hurt, and he said "point to your hip", and I pointed to my sacrum. Then he drew the blood for the RF and HLAB27. The guy's a genius!

Erica, you are fantastic!
Seriously
Have just printed off pain map and have begun filling it in.
Excellent idea to print off 3 for different pain levels as you described - this being such a variable disease and all.

Thanks so much for passing on this guy's genius to me! I hear everyone talking about where their pain is all the time and I realise that I know even less about human anatomy that I thought I have been googling away and have much more of an idea where my pain is in technical terms now. Thanks for the heads up on this.

Hi guys,

I have a bunch of questions, some of them admittedly dumb, so brace. I was diagnosed with AS about three years ago and, for the first two, I was on etoricoxib and sulphasalazine (still on). It's a typical case of sacroilitis -- last MRI that happened a year ago pegged it as moderately severe bilateral sacrolitits. In the one year that I have been without the NSAID, I've managed well (zero pain) thanks to exercise, some yoga, a little bit of walking and, occasionally, medium-impact sports like badminton and squash.

However, since I have had to go back to the NSAID recently -- the doctor has advised it to take in bursts of 7-8 days and not just a single dose -- I'm not sure if badminton and squash are advisable. I mean, they seem to put some strain on the SI, among other joints.

I can't recall any incident where the pain exacerbated following a game (also I have never played during bouts of pain), but I don't want to land a fractured joint, truth be told.

And then you have people like Michael Slater, who played int't level cricket despite AS.

In a fix!

Also, how much time does one have before sacrolitis wreaks havoc?