The early stages of ankylosing spondylitis mainly present with pain in the spine, including the neck, back, lumbar, sacral and shoulder, or pain or swelling in the large joints of the lower extremities or the heel. The onset of the disease can be insidious, even if the patient is unsure of the exact time of onset. It can also have an acute onset, with sudden onset of joint swelling and pain and limited movement. A prominent feature of this type of disease is that the pain worsens at night and becomes more pronounced in the morning, when rest does not relieve the symptoms, and then the symptoms are relieved by movement, which is known as “morning stiffness.
The early stages of ankylosing spondylitis are easily misdiagnosed because many patients do not present with pain in the spine in the early stages, but rather with pain in the large joints of the lower extremities as the first manifestation, a feature that many doctors are not aware of, leading to misdiagnosis. Many physicians take pictures (x-ray, CT or MRI) of their patients wherever they have pain, including lumbar pain and cervical pain. The resulting photographs report osteophytes in the lumbar or cervical spine, and this is used as the diagnosis. MRI of the sacroiliac joint can confirm the diagnosis at an early stage. In fact, it is the pictures of the sacroiliac joint that are meaningful for the diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis, but not many people have sacroiliac joint pain as a prominent manifestation. This is the reason why early ankylosing spondylitis is so easily misdiagnosed.
Myths about the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis
Myth 1: Many patients with ankylosing spondylitis go to the hospital for intravenous penicillin (with dexamethasone added to it) to relieve pain symptoms during an attack, which is the wrong therapy. This is because penicillin is not effective for ankylosing spondylitis, and it is the effect of dexamethasone that relieves painful symptoms in it. As a hormone, dexamethasone is very harmful in the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis.
Myth 2: Go to pharmacies in Hong Kong or Macau to buy “special drugs” for rheumatic diseases. These drugs are composed of hormones, anti-inflammatory pain and vitamins, if purchased in mainland pharmacies, each tablet contains “1 cent of hormones + 2 cents of anti-inflammatory pain + 2 cents of vitamins”, but “illegally” mix several drugs together, it costs several hundred Hong Kong dollars 1 bottle. One of the more famous is the “bone strength”.
These drugs are mostly printed with the words “Made in USA” or “Made in Germany”, but there are no pharmacies in the United States and Germany to treat rheumatism “special drugs”, only in the Asian Only in the Chinese community in Asia can you buy them.
Although these drugs have a strong effect on pain and swelling, they cannot control the disease and have a lot of side effects with long-term use. On the one hand, the side effects are hormones, and on the other hand, the side effects of anti-inflammatory pain on the stomach and kidneys.
Myth 3: Listening to advertisements and falling into the trap of charlatan doctors, not only are you cheated of your money, but also delay your condition. The other is the so-called “proprietary Chinese medicine” containing hormones or other western drugs, which are mostly under the guise of “secret recipes” or “patented scientific research results”, with the inconvenience of publicizing the formula as an excuse to make the hospital homemade The so-called “proprietary Chinese medicine” is made in hospitals under the guise of “secret recipes” or “patented scientific research results”, under the pretext that it is not convenient to disclose the recipe, and it is also sworn to guarantee that it does not contain western drugs and has no side effects.
Not only do we need pain relief, we need relief from the condition
Ankylosing spondylitis is a disabling disease. Therefore, its treatment requires not only pain relief, but more importantly, control of the disease, improvement and restoration of the function of the spinal joints, stopping the disease from progressing to joint dysfunction, and preventing progression to disability. Until the 1960s, ankylosing spondylitis was known as the “central form of rheumatoid arthritis” because ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis have a number of common features.
1, the same chronic disabling disease;
2. Pain is more pronounced at night;
3, stiffness and pain are more pronounced when waking up in the morning, and reduced after activity;
4, hormones and anti-inflammatory painkillers are effective in relieving symptoms.
The difference lies only in the fact that: ankylosing spondylitis is dominated by the spine and large joints; rheumatoid arthritis is dominated by the peripheral joints of all sizes.
This is why ankylosing spondylitis is the “central type” and rheumatoid arthritis is the “peripheral type”. Later, as medical research progressed, it was discovered that these two diseases have different susceptibility genes and different pathological bases, and are actually two diseases, not two types of one disease.
However, there are some similarities in the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis. Methotrexate, salazosulfapyridine, Eroflavine, torch flower root tablets, and rheumatoid arthritis are effective for both ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis; while hydroxychloroquine is only effective for rheumatoid arthritis and not for ankylosing spondylitis; azathioprine and cyclophosphamide are often used for heavy and persistent rheumatoid arthritis, but less often for ankylosing spondylitis.
In any case, medication for ankylosing spondylitis must be administered under the supervision of a specialist. Because all medications used to relieve the condition have certain toxic side effects, scientific use of medication can yield maximum efficacy and minimum side effects, while blind use of medication is dangerous.
Three points depend on the doctor, seven points depend on yourself
If you are unfortunate enough to have ankylosing spondylitis, you must first have the confidence to subdue the disease. You need to be prepared to live with it for a long time, but also to prevent being destroyed by it. On the one hand, you need to seek treatment from a rheumatologist to control the disease, not just to reduce inflammation and pain; on the other hand, pay attention to your own health care and functional exercise to prevent deformation and ankylosis of the spine and joints. Self-care methods mainly include the following.
1, sleep in a straight posture, to prevent scoliosis, mattress hard and low pillow to prevent hunchback;
2, often change position at work, for example, do not last too long with the computer, every 1 to 2 hours to get up for a while, especially the activities of the cervical spine;
3, long-distance drivers should take a break, get out of the car to move the waist, do stretching exercises;
4, usually more activities, do not always lie in bed, more activities of the lumbar spine and cervical spine, more chest expansion exercises, more hip extension and flexion exercises. If you adhere to the morning and evening (before and after going to bed) to do a radio gymnastics, there are definitely benefits;
5, life attention to avoid or timely treatment of various infections, especially intestinal infections, urinary tract infections and throat infections, these infections are likely to lead to aggravation of the disease.