Ankylosing Spondylitis Q & A

Hello, I am a mother of 2 and in extreme pain! I have been seeing a rheumatologist for the last 5 yrs.I was diagnosed with endometriosis,IBD,Fibromyalgia,Reiters Syndrome and AS(positive HLA-B27).He has tried me on many medications, but nothing seems to work.He seems to be concentrating on the endometriosis(which i have had several surgeries for but do not give me relief)He is at the point where he doesn’t know what to do with me. My symptoms are severe shoulder and neck pain on left side which leads to migraines,lower back pain,I have problems rolling over in bed, constant hip and buttock pain,my knees,ankles and tops of feet ache constantly. I cannot sit or stand for long periods of time.I am currently taking sulfazine,etodolac and oxycontin.The oxycontin is the only thing that seems to work as a temporary fix but I know it can be addicting. My question to you is,I feel the AS is what causes most of my pain. I have been dealing with this since 1995 and am at the end of the rope here.Do you think your facility can help me? I live in New Jersey and would be willing to travel to get some relief.Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you, Denise

Since having my girls 13 yrs.ago I began to notice that my posture was getting bad and thinking that it was from holding and carring the girls in ’95’ I saw a dr. that immedentaly did testing for as and it was positive. since then I’ve had ‘iritis’ in my left eye 3 yrs. ago and just finished up with it again in the right eye(very painfu) Im doing excerises and stay active but have some problems swallowing im bent at the shoulders but i am holding off on heavy meds because I dont want to wreak my immune system.. I am not in bad pain but am uncomfortable and it looks bad any suggestions?

What are the symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis?

My biopsy reads as “small vessel leukocytoclastic vasculitis with osinophiles”. I have taken Prednisone for three months with different doses (pills per day in a week: 4/w1, 3/w2, 2/w3, 1/w4, 1.5/w5, 1.5/w6, 3/w7, 3/w8, 3/w9, 3/w10, 2.5-2/w11, 1.5~1/w12, 0.5/w13). In the three months my symptoms have never come to a level of full control, though the situation changed up and down. When I increased the doses, the severity level (size and scope of the rashes on my skin) was decreased in the first two weeks; When I kept a constant dose, it started to get worse after about 2 weeks; When I reduced the dose, it quickly became much worse. Why and what should I do?

Could you tell me of anyone specializing in psoriatic arthritis in Michigan? Thank you