[Lisibug]

I was going through some of my medical records for my upcoming SSD hearing week after next. I found an old blood test from 2005 which showed positive for the HLA B27 antigen marker. This antigen carries the strong possibility of the person having an autoimmune disease, particularly ankylosing spondylitis or Reiter's disease. I was reading about ankylosing spondylosis and I have a feeling that I have this. I've had low back pain since I was 13 (I'm now 46), and when the weather isn't hot, I am awakened every morning with strong pain in the hips that forces me to get out of bed and walk around or use a heating pad. This is apparently a very big symptom of AS. On MRI I have degenerative changes throughout my spine and have undergone two neck surgeries for this. I had particularly rapid degeneration after my fusion 3 years ago, necessitating 3 other levels to be surgically repaired within two years.

I will be looking into this with my doc. I do not know if my blood tests show any inflammation - this would also be an indication. The inflammation blood test for inflammation I read about in articles was not performed at the time of the blood test I had in hand. I know I've been tested for RA several times and do not have this. One point of interest (at least to me!) - AS is an autoimmune disease. I have obviously not yet been diagnosed with this - but I have previously been diagnosed with two other autoimmune diseases: fibromyalgia and sensory motor demyelinating polyneuropathy. I am grateful to be able to say that I have been seeing a chinese medical doc for years who has halted the progression and symptoms of both these diseases; however, I do have slight residual damage from the polyneuropathy when the disease hit with full force, but it is mild. Also interestingly, a couple of years ago I asked my chinese medical doc why my spine degenerates so fast and he said at the time that I had antibodies that would attack my ligaments and spinal structures. This seems to pretty much be what AS is. He diagnosed the polyneuropathy, not with a name, indicating that I had lesions on the actual nerves and that this was an autoimmune response. The attacks were very similar to MS attacks, but he said I had no lesions in my brain or on my spinal cord. I had two brain MRIs over several years which were both clear, but about 6 years after my attacks which the chinese medical doc had stopped, I had EMG/NCV which showed that I had just what the chinese medical doc had described. Pretty amazing. I haven't been to him in awhile, maybe I should keep going to keep this degeneration at bay!

I just thought I'd mention this, as it could possibly be an underlying cause for the degeneration in some of your spines/hips/knees/ shoulders. It particularly hits the large joints.