Spondyloarthropathy

Your spine is inflaming. The joints between the vertebrae — those small, inconspicuous connections that allow you to turn, to bend, to move freely — grow hard and stiff. What was once supple becomes resistance. What once allowed movement becomes a blockade.

Spondyloarthropathy is an inflammatory disease of the spinal joints. Medically, the immune system attacks the body's own tissue — tendon attachments, facet joints, sacroiliac joints. The body wages a war against its own axis. Against what holds it upright.

Rheumatology describes the process. It names inflammatory markers, tissue changes, ossifications. But it does not answer one question: Why does the immune response turn against the body's own load-bearing structure? Why does hardening occur precisely where flexibility would be vital?