Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion Helpful Tips Any tips for height loss and "regrow" lost height?

Hi people, I was diagnosed with AS on Oct 2013 at 22y/o after suffering from SI joint pain since 14 y/o followed by incredibly stiff neck at 21y/o.

I realized I lost quite a bit of my height, I was 177cm (5 ft 9) and recently when I remeasure my height it was 174cm (5ft 7) and I have a friend that I was always taller than him whom is taller than me now.

I must admit I have zero exercise & stretching and was depressed since all this happened. One of the reason is I thought I'm still young and my bone won't degenerate THAT quickly and now I just realized I'm dead wrong..

So back to my main question, is it possible to regain my lost height? Or is it a permanent thing?

Well usually lost height can be explained by being "hunched". It's probably possible that you lost a few centimeters if your vertebraes are a bit more "compressed" than they used to be or if you had bone loss of some form. An x-ray would tell you more.

Doing proper stretching exercices and watching your posture can definitely help you keep your height for a longer time. Not all people with AS lose height, but it can be one consequence.

As far as regaining your height, it really depends on what has caused the loss in the first place.

agree with Wilhelm. Depends on why you lost the height.

I lost around 8 inches in height primarily due to kyphotic stoop A surgery gave me 5 odd inches back.

I hope though that you can manage your AS well enough (Biologics/diet/exercise and especially a positive outlook) not to stoop, or to minimise it as much as possible

When I feel slouchy, I do some foam roller exercises (lots of videos on youtube, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE5na0zvVMg but with all exrecise it may hurt you so ask doctors) that make stuff nicely crack and crunch and I stand a little taller afterwards. These exercises may have gotten a couple mm back in my height, or it was the negative heel shoes (I wear MBT and RYN ordered from Amazon after I found my proper size in a shoe store - http://www.amazon.com/Ryn-Trail-Walking-...words=ryn+shoes ) that lengthened my lower back a little.

Standing on a balance board ( http://www.amazon.com/Trademark-Innovati...s=balance+board ) every so often, like when hand washing dishes loosens up stuff in my sacro-iliac that I can often feel all the way to my neck.

Somebody on another post mentioned an inversion table. As soon as I read that I looked it up and bought one on Amazon. It just came today and I can't say whether or not it will help with height loss but being able to go upside down and stretch out your back feels amazing!