Hey welcome everybody. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this episode of The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast. It's kind of interesting, as a person that's had Ankylosing Spondylitis for over 34 plus years, I'm in no way an expert and I continuously learn. I'm an only an expert on the way as has affected me and the weird thing or the unfortunate thing about this disease is that we are all affected differently.
One thing I do notice as I read the forums, whether it be on Facebook or the different areas, is I see people that are maybe in the earlier stages of AS and still quite flexible, still can move relatively well and I see a lot of talk about, I've cured it, I'm going to fight back against it to the best of my research capabilities. There is no such thing as curing Ankylosing Spondylitis, there's remission and I hope you all enjoy long fruitful remission. But I found nothing that says that there is any wave based upon medical research that as is actually cured. I'm not saying that to be a downer, I'm just saying, go into this realistically go into this with the idea that you're managing something that's going to affect you for your lifetime.
Whether you be in your 20s 30s 50s or 60s, you're going to be dealing with this most likely the rest of your life and that if you take that attitude, my thought is if you carry on forward with that attitude, well as a chronic illness, there's going to be good days, there's going to be bad days, you're going to end up fighting this with the good fight, you're going to come out of this much better than somebody that is always trying to ignore.
With this podcast, one of things I want to look at is can we help this with diet? I see people say, “Oh, you've got to be a vegan” or all you've got to eat this or “You must eat…” data you stay away from this.
You know, I really don't know because I'm a terrible example I do not follow any type of specific diet. And I need to. I've had four hip replacement actually three hip replacement operations and one revision that failed and I carry too much weight I need to be able to lessen the weight that's being carried on my joints.
My last surgery created a drop foot for me on my left foot, which means I now will be wearing a brace. Matter of fact today I went and got fitted for a brace to hopefully help to keep me from tripping so much on my left foot. So there are a lot of things that can affect that. The weight that I carry, and the limited use of my left leg.
I can't exercise I can't go out and run I see people that are able to do that. The stretching is great. All of these items, whether it be running, stretching, anything to keep that weight off. Stay away from any type of diabetes, or, or any type of sedentary lifestyle as best you can is going to only benefit you. So as we go forward in this, I want to look at diet. I'll be having somebody on pretty soon talks about a diet based upon it's called NSNG, no sugars, no grains, and Vinnie Tortorich here to talk about it. And in that episode, you'll find links to his books and his website and videos and he's had his own podcast. He's got a lot of good evidence as to the no sugar, no grain theory, and how it can help and reduce inflammation, which is really the main issue that we all suffer from. And on top of that, it can help to keep some of you, hopefully the weight off.
I've also planned on having a person on to deal and talk about, you know, relationships, not how you deal with your friends. I think we all do fairly well in that aspect. It's really the relationship you have with others that care for us. Whether it be a boyfriend, girlfriend, whoever.
You're going to deal with situations where you're having a flare, and they don't understand is if they don't have any type of illness like this. They're going to have higher energy levels most...
