Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Bowed By Age

by admin - 21:26 on 31 July 2014

A week ago I was called to Dingwall's bijou Ross Memorial Hospital where I was poked and prodded by a physiotherapist, X-rayed up and down my back, and relieved of a small quantity of blood. Today I returned to get the verdict on my neck's increasing inability to turn. It was no surprise, having had the condition suggested to me a couple of times already, that it's almost certain I have ankylosing spondylitis.

This is a form of arthritis that, in my case, affects the upper two-thirds of my spine, welding the vertebrae together along a ligament. It's not a bony growth, my medical expert explained, but something closer to half-set Polyfilla, created by the body attempting to deal with inflammation. Once it's there it stays there. The condition most commonly begins in males aged 15-35 so it's been creeping up on me for at least twenty years. This means that the stiffness I feared was caused by bad posture (and maybe lack of exercise) is actually bad posture caused by stiffness (and maybe lack of exercise).

If AS is confirmed, mine's unusual in that the alarm bells are usually set off by pain, which I don't have. The good news is that having had none for so long means I'm unlikely to have it in the future.

I returned to The Rural Retreat with a set of stretching exercises and an appointment for a month's time when the final blood test results will be through. There's no cure for AS but the exercises should at least stop it getting worse and hopefully begin a reversal.

Matchgirl, bless her, is more concerned than I am, but with her glass-half-empty approach to life, and my glass-half-full one, that's no surprise. My birthday tomorrow will bring me into the actuaries' 56-65 age group so maybe I should expect my body to show some deterioration. Time marches on.

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