Its been a while, apologies for that. I was really busy with work. The credit crunch has hit the company and cuts were made. I was lucky enough to stay and now I have been off for a  week. I woke up 2 weeks ago now with an itchy, aggravatedright eye. It soon became really red and cloudy and so I went off to the doctors. I suspected it was related to the AS but hoped it was an infection. You know things are bad when your hoping for an infection.

I went to my doctors who soon passed me on to the eye clinic to see a specialist, they checked my eye, checked the pressure and confirmed it was Iritis (might be incorrectly written there) and they have issued me with 1 set of eye drops that sting like hell, to be taken morning and night to open my pupil right up to prevent the lense from sticking to my eyeball. Apparently this can happen!

The other drops are steroidal and I take hourly. At the moment my vision is totally impaired and I have no depth perception and vision in my right eye is really cloudy. The office I work in is over 100 miles away so I cant get to work, nor can I work from home.

Here is a pic of my eyes at the moment. Check my pupils.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l225/fire_in_the_hole/Myeyes.jpg

I have the new Call of duty Modern Warfare 2  and I cannot see a bloody thing to play it.

I love AS.

Ken

Anyway my documents are through, my Dr could see I was in agony and he quickly issued me with 90mg Arcoxia and 120mg Arcoxia for when I get very stiff and painful. I now have a box of 100 tramadol for pain relief. I started exercise for the first time today. I have done a bit on the punch bag and light weights with some pressups. I feel weak in my core so have alot to catch up on.

Hey Wendy! Thanks for your message on an early post of mine. It would be great to see you in 2011 and Brian at the conference. I will definitely have to get over there!!

Peace guys

Kenx

 I work in IT but I am not a real IT person, more of a specialist in a software package but a lady who is not too sharp on computers asked me this – “Why is it, that when I want to turn my computer off I have to click the start button?”

 When you think about it she has a point.

I never wanted my posts to seem negative all the time but the last 6 months has been the worst experiences of AS I have had to endure. What’s happening to me? I just about got used to the pain in my lower back, the restrictions in movement in my hips and the ups and downs and now my neck seems to not want to turn left.

I am taking this in my stride, the way we are suppose to. But it’s pretty scary when it hits you – BANG YOU HAVE AS.

But above all this I am still here, still alive and kicking and still in a job which looks more and more unlikely with the economic down turn we are in. Aren’t we coming out of it now?

 Anyway – I was looking through YouTube at some AS related videos and watched a really cool video from a bloke called Tom. I have emailed him and we are trying to get together on MSN to chat and I am hoping to have a story from someone else’s point of view soon.

Cheers

Ken

Well I have had a great weekend. Saturday I just chilled and got my mountain bike out and went for a spin. The bike is a great way of exercise and its smooth on the joints so low impact! I feel great after exercise so enjoy doing it. I was only out for about 30 minutes and it was enough to allow my body to relax.

I went to see Jimmy Carr last night in York and it was brilliant. I am unsure if people outside of the UK have heard of him but he is a very good comedian that won’t hold back at all! Very funny!!

I am all set for a good week. My body feels good although I am having to take Tramadol to sleep at the moment as my ribs are extremely painful. I might go for a walk tonight to keep my legs going. Other than that I feel good at the moment.

Apologies for my absence. I was on holiday for a few weeks and then came back and forgot my password for the site so Mr. Warner had to help me out. Now I am back I can give you a quick summary of what I have been up to.

My back has been OK for the last few weeks. I have not been able to exercise like I usually do but I am glad I am still living without too much pain. The Arcoxia seem to be doing their job but I do think the dosage needs to be stepped up. I am currently on the 60mg and used to have the 90mg! So I need to talk to my Dr I think.

So I have been camping, fishing and visiting family – Travelled over 1000 miles from north to south, east to west. I bet that wouldn’t even get you out of some states in the US! Ha!

My plans this weekend are to catch up with a good friend I used to work with and Sunday I am off to see Jimmy Carr who is a hilarious comedian over here. You may have heard of him. He cuts it close to the bone but he is funny!

I need to step my exercise up so that’s my goal this weekend. How are you guys doing?

Post me a msg!

Its pretty annoying too, I started writing for this site and on starting I have been in a ‘bad phase’ and I don’t want to give a negative impression but at the same time I have to be honest. With hat said I think the whole bad spell was down to running out of meds, I have them now so surely the only way is up!

Be cool people.

If anyone wants to discuss AS off the board for whatever reason feel free to email direct. kenny_holley at Hotmail.com

Last night (Monday Night) for me has been the worst night  I have ever had with my back. It has never been so painful. My Fiancée in the end had to call out the emergency doctor who was quite restricted in what he could do. Because I was due medication he didn’t want to give me anything that would conflict. With that said I took pain killers and some Ibuprofen and rested. By 10am my Fiancée managed to bully the doctors in to getting my medication ready. I took some and slowly became more comfortable. I am still in pain, my ribs are painful and when lying down my nerves around my chest create sharp pains that stop me from breathing. It’s pretty scary. I will see how I feel in the morning; hopefully I will feel well enough to get myself in to work and start feeling a bit more normal.

SparkywithAS -

Hi mate, welcome to the site. The drive took it out of me coupled with having no tablets was a bad thing but I was definitely going Wales… nothing was going to stop me.

How does the pain scale work with your tablets?

I have not started the starch diet yet as I was away and camping making it difficult. I am going to start Saturday as I am off work for a few weeks so it will be interesting to see what impact it has.

Keep posting!

Bit of a recap, Monday night I was really bad to the point I thought I may have had to go to hospital for pain relief. I have only ever been to hospital as a result of being so bad once which was a long time ago. I got some pain killers down my trap and saw the night out. Last night I felt awkward and achy. I went along to my brothers to band practice (I play in an acoustic band) and practiced for a short while. Then we had a kick-a-round with a football in the gym we practice. I started to feel better as my body slowly got used to moving. I popped some anti inflammatory before bed and slept well. Today I feel really pretty good.

At the moment I am trying to stay away from starchy foods as per Doreen’s advice from my “I feel good” post. I have dropped starchy food and increased further my protein intake. I naturally eat a lot of protein as I train as much as I can. Apparently it can have a massive positive effect on the level of inflammation in the body.

I spoke to my sister last night about AS and how much she knew about it. I showed her the site and she was genuinely interested in the cause and effect of AS. I stay at my sisters at least once a week when I am near her neck of the woods with business so we see a lot of each other and get on like a house on fire. She didn’t realise that people suffer so bad with the condition. I explained that some people are permanently disabled by the condition and this kind of info shocked her. I also explained that keeping a positive outlook is almost as important as the little blue and green pills I keep taking.

Speaking of keeping positive, I am really looking forward to Friday night, driving the 3-4 hour drive to Wales for a weekends sea fishing! It will be awesome!

I will keep you all posted on how it goes when I am back.

Be good people!

At the moment when I sleep as I mentioned already, I can only sleep on my back. Last night I went for a quick nap (sleep) around 7pm and slept right through. When I woke up around 3am I was in major pain, I was struggling to breathe as my ribs were really painful. I got up, took some tramadol and got up to start moving my body before it became too much. I always do this, even if I need a walking aid or help I will get out there and start walking. So I got up at 4am, made a brew (Northern speak for cup of tea) stuck my shorts and a hoody on and went for a walk. I find just trying to be relaxed helps so going for a walk where I live which is rolling hills and fields and beautiful wildlife really helps me. Don’t get me wrong, I was shuffling at first and I bet I looked like a mad man in shorts with a cup of tea but hey if it gets me feeling better who cares? I certainly don’t!

 Today I am working from home. I should be in the office and I don’t like the idea of not being there. In general people don’t understand. My own family would struggle to tell you lot what is wrong with me, in fairness I don’t see that much of them as I live about 120 miles away and we all work and lead busy lives. In general, I don’t talk about my condition much to the people I work with. It does not matter how you approach it if I do mention it, it somehow imprints on people in such away and your just classed as ‘another’ person with a ‘bad back’. Which is why websites like these are good, even if we do get 2 people visit a day and only 1 of the reads a little, it’s 1 person that now knows what Ankylosing Spondylitis is.

Yesterday I went to my local doctors and met a brilliant doctor. He is going to be my contact now locally and I can now get a decent amount of medication to cover me for 3 months instead of returning every 2 weeks. He actually specialises in Rheumatology which is brilliant and he knew a lot about AS which makes a change for once! I will keep the site posted on how I get on but I think this will make things a lot easier. I could not actually get any medication yesterday as they are waiting for my medical notes to come through from my old doctors. In a week’s time I will be able to get a flow of meds to keep me out of times like these…. ahhhhh brilliant!

Have fun today!