Good point Wendy and I couldn't agree more, spinal involvement is THE key symptom...it was what differentiated my symptoms from the symptoms of other auto-immune diseases and brought the DX of AS to me...and believe me, I've seen enough auto-immune diseases in my lifetime, it is so heavily imbedded in my family and has been all of my life, there's virtually no one in my family that isn't afflicted with one of these diseases, we've even lost family members to some of these diseases...but my point is that being so familiar with the symptoms of Lupus, MS, RA, Fibro, I knew that something else was wrong with me long before I got my DX and I ultimately decided to let the doctors handle it, even armed with all of that info and having medical professionals in the family, I knew that I wasn't qualified to diagnose or treat myself...xxooxx
