Ankylosing Spondylitis

Your spine is stiffening. Slowly, insidiously, often over the course of years. What was once flexible — bending, rotating, extending your back — becomes increasingly restricted. The inflammation sits deep, in the joints between the vertebrae and the pelvis, and it works quietly. At some point you notice that you can no longer move freely. That your body is curling forward, as though an invisible weight rests on your shoulders, pressing you permanently downward.

Medically, ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease. The immune system attacks its own joints; bones fuse where mobility should exist. The body builds itself a corset — from bone, not fabric. And it builds it where your uprightness lives: in the spine, your central axis.