Hip Pain turned out to be Ankylosing Spondylitis

by Brian
(Waco, TX USA)

When I was 25 or so, I started having these excruciating pains in my hips. Felt like sciatica. Went to many doctors and heard the same things from all of them.

"Lose weight and the pain will go away."

When I would lose weight, the pain for some reason would get worse, not better. I went on one NSAID to another. They would help with the pain and I'd stop. Then the pain would come back with a vengeance.

I would go back to doctors wanting an answer and again continually told to lose weight and the pain will go away.

I suffered with this hip pain for over 10 years and at one point I developed "pink eye". My general practitioner put me on an antibiotic eye drop but it felt like it was getting worse and was very painful.

I decided to go to an opthamologist and have it looked at. It turned out to be iritis. The opthamologist put me on a steroid drop and had me go back to my opthamologist to have an HLA-B27 and Sed Rate test.

HLA-B27 is a leukocyte antigent test which is a genetic marker. If this test is positive, it predisposes to back arthritis namely ankylosing spondylitis or Reiter's syndrome.

I was HLA-B27 positive and finally diagnosed with AS. Made me really want to go back and tell all those doctors where they could go, but I was glad to finally know what was wrong.

My doctor gave me a shot of Torodol which worked wonders. I was completely pain free for over a month for the first time in a long time. He also started me on another round of NSAIDs, but knowing now that I had AS, I knew that I had to stay on these and not stop after the pain went away.

I'm 50 now, and haven't had hip pain in over 15 years. I do still have the iritis from time to time and have to visit my opthamologist.

One thing about NSAIDs also that I had to learn is that they don't work overnight. They usually have to build up over time. So if you're put on an NSAID, give it a week or two before you go to something else.