I have been off the board for a while because my computer contracted a particularly nasty spondylolysis and gave up the ghost for a while. I have just spent and hour or two having a read of what has been going on in my absence. What struck me most is first that the Dragonslayer has been suffering recently (he has been such a help to so many of us I would like to reiterate how massive an impact he has made on my life and I am sure on many others) and second how much more cutting edge this board is getting, of which this thread is just one example.
My conclusions are that with the NSD or LSD there is no miracle cure, nor is their likely to be a miracle cure in the foreseeable future through any other avenue. It seems to me that there is a large range of factors that are influencing our AS and that we have to try and look at ways of limiting each in turn. It is too easy to say that you had a nasty attack because you ate x or because you didn't eat y, whereas in reality it is a more complex beast than that.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that at least 80% of people have a noticeable improvement on the NSD/LSD, but that considerably less than that go into complete remission on it. I would suggest that we should not get too disheartened when things go wrong with our symptoms whilst on the NSD, but that we should continue to try and establish consensus about what has worked and what hasn't whilst acknowledging that there is no panacea. Perhaps most importantly of all, try and pay as little attention as possible to those doctors who do not even want to address the complexity of this disease and worse, try and convince you to resign yourself to a life of suffering.
Charlie
