Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that predominantly affects the spinal joints and nearby tendons, ligaments, and other soft tissues. The worldwide prevalence is between 0.25% and 0.45%. In the early stages, patients will have back pain, or pain in the buttocks, or back pain, or they may only have stiffness. And as the disease progresses, the lesion will move from the buttocks. The lower back progresses to the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical spine, and then pain and restricted movement in the corresponding areas occur, leading to spinal deformity. In some patients, the spine is so hardened that it cannot be bent, the waist cannot be bent, the neck cannot be turned, and it is difficult to squat, even in the toilet, or in severe cases, to urinate and defecate while standing. Some patients may also develop a severe hunchback. In the past, the disease has been called the “undead cancer”. In addition, ankylosing spondylitis is a systemic disease. In addition to low back pain, some patients may have inflammation of the thighs, knees, hands, and feet. Some patients may have eye disease (iritis, conjunctivitis, etc.), skin lesions, gastrointestinal lesions, urinary lesions, etc. How can ankylosing spondylitis be detected early? What kind of back pain should be considered as a possibility of ankylosing spondylitis? 1. Low back pain that slowly appears at a young age. It is well known that the older generation is prone to lumbago and back pain after prolonged exertion and is diagnosed with disc herniation and lumbar strain. But teenagers in their teens, young people in their twenties and thirties, and young adults in their thirties, if they develop low back pain, they can’t simply assume it’s a problem with the lumbar discs or lumbar muscles! In fact, a lot of young people’s back pain is caused by ankylosing spondylitis. 2, “fear of the night, love of activity” of low back pain This disease is also characterized by low back pain: (1) night pain. Patients with this disease still have significant pain at night, especially in the second half of the night. (2) Improvement after activity. The pain is reduced after appropriate activity. (3) Pain is not relieved after rest. After resting, the pain does not decrease, but increases in some people. Low back pain caused by other diseases often does not conform to the above characteristics. In the past, it was thought that the disease mainly occurred in men. In fact, there is no big difference between men and women in the probability of having the disease, only that the symptoms are often more serious in men, but relatively light in women, so many female patients are not detected or diagnosed. 4, take some medicine, the effect can be, but easy to repeat. This is also one of the characteristics of the disease back pain. 5, some patients have a certain degree of genetic possibility (not absolutely will be inherited). So sometimes there are cases where a father and son are sick at the same time, and brothers (cousins, cousins) are sick at the same time. How should ankylosing spondylitis be diagnosed? More than 90% of patients with ankylosing spondylitis go to the hospital because of low back pain, but first they go to Chinese medicine, orthopedics, rehabilitation, physiotherapy, etc. These doctors are not rheumatologists and have limited knowledge of ankylosing spondylitis, so they will simply relieve low back pain, but not find the root cause of back pain, thus delaying diagnosis and Treatment. Often, patients do not know they may have ankylosing spondylitis until the bones are already very diseased. The diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis requires: (1) A physician to ask questions about the disease and examine the lumbar spine firsthand to determine if it has the characteristics of the disease. (2) Blood tests to check if the HLA-B27 gene is positive, etc. (3) Radiographs, and MRI is required for early cases. (4) Combining laboratory tests, such as blood sedimentation, C-reactive protein, etc. How is ankylosing spondylitis treated? The treatment of this disease emphasizes individualized, scientific, and formalized treatment, using a combination of both primary and secondary treatment, slow and acute treatment, traditional and modern drugs (including biological agents), and a combination of Chinese and Western medicine. As there are more specific aspects of treatment, I plan to introduce the treatment plan of the disease to you in the next issue. The exaggerated and deceptive banners on the Internet and in society, such as “army, ancestral, old Chinese medicine, secret formula, latest achievement, patent, bone purification, small molecule, blood purification, rapid, radical cure, pure Chinese medicine, non-toxic side effects”, cater to the patient’s eagerness to cure, on the one hand, and the patient’s lack of professional medical knowledge and ability to distinguish, on the other hand. We should be alert to this.