Customer Reviews

Ankylosing Spondylitis: The Facts (Oxford Medical Publications)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent book that further explains this hereditary immune disease and the genetic HLA-B27-xx chromosone that your ancestors have handed down unknowingly. Just recently researchers have also found two other chromosones that are also linked to AS. You will find that even some Rheumatologist's will misdiagnose your disease because they either don't know enough about AS themselves or they feel the "tests" are too expensive. Therefore you may suffer in unnecessary debilitating pain until you insist upon testing. Educate yourself with the most knowledgeable doctor in this field who just so happens to have AS himself.

If you're looking for an AS book with the facts then this is the one.
You will find the explanations clear.
Hopefully if you are an AS sufferer this will give you some relief. It explains that it might not be as bad for you as you first thought. It details exercises that will make real difference for most sufferers.
You should get this book if you suffer from AS or want to know more about it.

This is a good book to add to your research while waiting the four months it takes to get to see a rheumatologist. And at just 140 pages you might just read it in the waiting room.

It is very straight forward, albeit dry reading. It covers exercises, sleeping postures, case histories, alternative treatments, and medications from NSAIDs to TNF blockers like Embrel.

This is written by a medical doctor so naturally all alternative treatments are dismissed as having no value whatsoever.

Regarding chiropractic care, the author states that AS patients should "avoid manipulation" because these treatments have "sometimes inadvertently led to spinal fractures".

The low starch diet is discussed and is "not recommended" because it has not been "scientifically evaluated". Of course it hasn't been evaluated, and it never will be because there's no money to be made by large corporations.

Later he admits that "AS may be triggered by gut infection with Klebsiella bacteria". Given this statement I thought the low starch diet (which restricts Klebsiella) should have been given more consideration.

Despite the dishing of all alternative treatments, this book is a good resource.

I purchased this book for my husband who is battling AS, when he was first diagnosed & it was all so new to us. The book is very informative about the condition and somewhat thorough. I didn't find it very personal though. Since the author is an AS sufferer himself I just expected a more personal approach to his story telling. He gives you the basic, clinical facts & conventional medical treatments, no more, no less.

I found this book to be a huge amount of knowledge on the subject of AS. I found information that led me to new understandings of the puzzling dissorder and I learned many things that I did not know.

Order this book after a proable diagonosis of AS from the Rheumatologist who wasn't very helpful on the self help and management of it. I know that there can be a wide range of patient symptoms and progression of the condition and in writing a book like this it needs to target us all. I don't need drug managment but wanted to do the best I could to keep it that way. The main thing I got that was helpful for me is it was good to work on posture correction, chest expansion, flexiablity and mobility of the joints of the spine. I have since went to a pilates based physiotherapist and got a home program that I could do daily to work on theses things. I found the book informative about diagnosis and disease progression. It is less helpful on natural alternatives and diet modification. It is written by a rheumatologist who is working within his scope of practice. Probably with more understanding on it and what we would like to know because he has the condition.

I wish they would hand this out to the rheumatologists as I've not met one that knows anything about the spondyloarthropathies.