Are We Looking At This Disease Wrong

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast. How's everybody doing today? This has been a fantastic week here in Michigan where I'm at the temperatures have pulled back a little bit. It's been actually cool, but not super wet. So the Ankylosing Spondylitis all feels pretty darn good. I know other people are starting to come into their summers as we had in our falls. So I hope everybody is doing well and and for those of you that are on the west coast of the United States dealing with all the fires, I really hope that you are doing well. And for anybody around the world has got fires or some natural issues, disasters going on. I hope everybody's just safe and able to just enjoy life as best you can.

As you get going. I wanted to read a couple of really neat emails and a review that came in on the podcast. And this review was from England, from the United Kingdom, and it says,

“I've been enjoying this podcast for a few months now. It's been super informative and helpful to learn about how other people react to this disease and what their experiences are. Thanks for sharing.”

Well, thank you, JoeGeorge in the United Kingdom. I appreciate hearing from you. And that's really fantastic. I appreciate the feedback. We're all a community here with ankylosing spondylitis, non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis. You know, that whole axial spondyloarthritis umbrella. We're all in this together. We're all here to learn from each other and help from each other. And I really hope through the show, if somebody hears something and it helps them, get through the day, through the hour through the week, whatever, that they're better off for it. So I really enjoy getting this feedback from everybody that's listening. I also got an email from a young lady named Lydia, she wrote,

“My name is Lydia and I'm from Ireland. I am 39 and was diagnosed with AS just before last Christmas. I am so glad I listened to your podcast and it made me feel less alone with this life changing condition. Thank you for the information and keep up the good work.”

Well, Lydia, thank you for reaching out. Thank you for sharing a little bit about you and your diagnosis. I hope this finds you doing fantastic. And again, we're all here to learn from one another. So please don't hesitate to reach out to myself to reach out to anybody with questions or any concerns you're having regarding this. And we'll try to at least support you in the best way we can. Then I also got this email from a gentleman it also in the UK, and he wrote,

“Hi, Jayson, I just want to tell you how awesome your podcast is. I was diagnosed very recently. And he says about two months ago with as in your podcast was quite helpful and understanding the basics of AS and what progression to expect in the future. He says I am fortunate to be relatively mild case compared to many horror stories that I've heard and I still have the option of taking biologics in my progression is not good. In that sense, I am really thinking about people like you and others that were diagnosed decades ago when NSAIDs were the only option. It's incredible to think that people went through so much pain with so little pharmacutical support goes on to say I guess it's even worse to think about people about 200 years ago would have gone through this their life with as with no medical support, and everyone thinking that they were simply lazy. It would be really amazing to look at the history of AS (I did do a episode on Ankylosing Spondylitis history. I'll have that in the show notes so that you can go back and listen to it. And I sent it off to him as well in an email response. So I hope he enjoys it finishes up and says), Thanks for doing the awesome job of creating the podcast.

Well, you know what, Jergas, you are so welcome. I'm glad you like it. I...