Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Explain the Pain

I wear concrete shoes and trip over blades of grass. My ankles throb and my shoelaces need tightening all the time. hands feel as if I have too much air in them and someone is burning a match near my wrists. Who has a knuckle in my sternum and daggers in my neck and shoulder blades. I go into shock for a second if I sneeze.

OMGoodness. That ankles throbbing & shoelaces thing.... I WAS MAD AT MY SHOES FOR YEARS! Until I finally figured out what was happening. I figured it out from reading the posts here at KickAS about people trying to find the perfect shoe.

Hi All,
When my achilles tendons are tight and making it hard to walk I explain it as feeling like they are rubber bands already streched to the max ... no strech left for walking.

I hope you're all having an ache free day, or at least a minimal ache day!

I love you guys. I was just shocked awake with a kicked-by-a-cow in the center of my back followed by anaconda-squeezing-my-innards. I imagine tomorrow morning when I wake up I will not feel like I was run over but rather like the-truck-parked-on-my-back-all-night.
There needs to be a full out list of these.
I started giggling after reading ilbcrzn’s go-into-shock-if-I-sneeze because I am guessing it is the fastest way to spot someone with AS. Watch them sneeze! I know when I feel a sneeze coming, I stop dead in my tracks, hold onto something and get into that funny ‘I think this will cause me the least amount of pain’ position

Feet hurt so much at times that I want to glide and avoid touching the ground--like ice-skating (without the risk of falling down and breaking something).

I occasionally send the funny threads to my sisters. Here's a quote from one of them. "I know exactly how that feels....like when I twist or turn my left hand a certain way and it feels like someone is pulling off my left middle finger....or my right wrist feels like someone just pulled the hand off with my mitten...or my left hip (the fake one) feels like someone just pulled my leg out of the socket and the roots that connect to my backbone are not quite detached yet...yep, got it......"

getting into the car i get the hit by lightning at every connection point

Omg!- I tell people the same thing, but ofcourse they will never be able to comprehend the physical torment of AS

I have also described it as "Being brutally beaten about the tail-bone and sacroiliac joints with a baseball bat"

And when people ask what gifts I want for my birthday/christmas I always tell them I want a new spine

Me, too

Thanks Mathe for your reply. I have actually thrown out my neck from sneezing so hard. It does help to hold on to something so you don't hurt yourself lol. Who would think such a natural act could cause so much pain but it sure can be miserable if you have AS. I really hate having to explain the reason I cannot turn my head is because I sneezed!!!

Keep fighting and keep laughing (it really does help sometimes).