It's entirely possible you have AS. The HLA-B27 test, for reasons I've never understood fully, often comes up with a false negative result. And that first rheumy was, quite simply, an a$$.
I'm glad you went back and had a visit with a different rheumy. This one sounds quite knowledgeable. It's good you found him.
The two measurements you talk about are standard mobility tests. I'd be willing to be he looked at the distance of your head from the wall, too. I can't speak to the hands from the floor test, but the chest expansion test shows you to be on the low end of normal. A normal chest expansion range is between 3 and 5cm. Mine is 6cm despite some mid/upper back involvement, but I have singing training and pretty darned powerful lungs.
As Bridget said, what he's done as first steps in treatment is quite usual. If you are still not responding to the Indocid by the time you go back in, let him know and ask for something else. I would strongly suggest that you take all NSAIDS with a full glass of water and food, to better protect your stomach. I'm glad he's redone the B27 test and also to see that he's doing your C-Reactive Protein (CRP). He's probably testing your Sedimentation Rate (ESR) as well. These are indicators in your blood when you have inflammation. These numbers may or may not be elevated in people with AS, so if he says you have no inflammation markers, don't be surprised. Some rheumies don't consider them accurate indicators of disease activity in people with AS because of the number of us in whom they are not elevated, no matter how much pain and inflammation we are in. I would suggest seeing about having a nuclear bone scan. This is one of the best ways of determing where inflammation is located in your body (CRP and ESR can only say there is inflammation, not locate it).
I hadn't heard of the link between AS and prostatitis before, so I googled it. Here's what I found (I've linked these for you)"
Arthritis Treatment & Relief.com - I don't recognize this website, so I'm not sure about the accuracy of their info.
PubMed Central - PubMed is a good resource for research. This is a very interesting article (you'll have to download the PDF or read it page by page).
Hope that helps a little.
Hugs,
