Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Cramping back muscles

If there is one thing that bothers me the most about AS is the cramps i get on my mid section on my back. It immobilizes me and it's very painful. I can deal with the stiffness and pain from AS but cramps make me feel like a wimp.

I could be okay the night before and i wake up with in the morning with it, gets worse with moving around so i know it's a pulled muscle. But what am i doing at night ? Generally my back is very stiff in the morning and my neck and lower back burns and that's how i know i am in a flare. I must be stretching and forcing my back too much and somehow injuring the muscles to have cramps.

Does this happen to anyone, my rhumy doesn't think it's AS related. This week is the hip disease, neck and back cramps. They usually take about 2-3 days to go away.

Is this common for AS people ?

When things got bad for me before I was diagnosed, one of my most disabling problems was severe back muscle spasms. no amount of muscle relaxants would deal with it. They didn't go away until I started regular anti-inflammatory treatment (at the time it was NSAIDs). I would have said my muscle spasms were definitely part of the disease, caused by uncontrolled inflammation near the muscle insertions. I get what you say about exercise making it worse. When the muscles are going into spasm its really hard to do any kind of movement without it grabbing you. I can't take NSAIDs any more, and I'm not eligible for anti-tnf treatment here, so if I feel my back going like that again, I deal with it with a short course of pred.

Left field idea - may be unrelated but perhaps worth considering?
Look into diaphragmatic breathing.
Many people, and I'm one, have a tendency to exhaust the secondary breathing muscles - scalenes, traps, etc because they employ collapsed or chest breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing take a conscious effort to re learn but can lead to some lessening of muscle tension - particularly in the upper back.

When my SI joint becomes very inflamed, my lower back muscles spasm very bad....my PTs, chiros, physiatrists, etc have told me its my body's way of "protecting" that joint.

I have fairly consistent mild now, moderate before muscle spasms in my upper back due to the bone spurs and inflammation in my cervical spine.

Humira has helped both greatly.

Before diagnosis and humira, ice helped the very very most. I still take nightly Zanaflex (a muscle relaxant) but its less needed now. I take the Zanaflex, Aleve, ice, and ultrasound when my SI is very bad...those things together are helpful...less needed less often now....I went from only those things to those things plus methylpred every 2-3 months to those things plus humira.

Yes, very common, very normal to have muscle spasms in association with inflamed joints and nerve compression from inflamed joints.