I have the beginings of it, I take enbrel and arava  and  don't have to much problem with it unless i sit for more than 45 minutes at a time.  I also do yoga every day to keep my spine moving and my posture corrected.  I was told by my doctor that your spine will fuse crooked if your posture is incorrect.  ONce your spine has fused the fusion can go into your ribs fusing them and making it hard to impossible to breath( your lungs will not be able to expand  any longer).  I don't know about you but this scares the hell out of me.  I would not hesitate to get on any med right now anything you take with this the benefits totally outweigh the negative of the med.  Please don't wait any longer.

I have AS, it is not a form of RA, but a seperate autoimmune disease with its own specifics such as Morning stiffness lasting more than an hour and more pain after resting - less after movement/activity.  That's the most frustrating for me...I get so tired by mid-late afternoon, but if I lay down for 20 min or so, I stiffen-up horribly and have to shuffle around for another hour or so before I can move again. Even a short drive to the store...get out of the car and my spine is so stiff that I can't stand up straight.

There are many other joint issues but they can vary greatly from person to person.  Mine are spine, shoulders (5 surgeries so far) hands, feet/achilles and now my left knee has decided to join the party (:

As far as meds. go...I was first put on prednisone to knock out some inflammation, followed by Nsaids, and then methotrexate and Enbrel. 

pjk

2/18/10 9:20am

yes this is exactly true thanks for clearing this up I under went the same steps but instead of the enbrel I am tring Humira has helped a little but not as much as I had hoped and the side effects with skin infections not healing is quite bothersome