Diary of an AStronaut

SI Pain: 1/100 | Rib or Shoulder Pain: 9/100 | Concrete Back: 7/100 It was quite an interesting weekend because I experienced an explosion of fringe ankylosing spondylitis an autoimmune symptoms. These included... • A constant runny rose whenever I was outside • The...

SI Pain: 1/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Knee Pain: 3/100 Concrete Back: 7/100 Today was the last day of my fast. I felt pretty good but definitely the mood takes a hit on day two... and today is day 3. I'm kind of fine but also not. I'll unpack that a little... Physically...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 3/100 | Knee Pain: 4/100 Concrete Back: 8/100 I'm starting a 48-hour fast today. I just felt a bit rubbish yesterday evening and I decided to do something to knock myself back into feeling good again. Fasting is something I want to try to do...

SI Pain: 3/100 | Rib or Shoulder Pain: 0/100 | Knee Pain: 4/100 | Concrete Back: 9/100 Last night was tough. I think it's important to be honest in this diary. My focus with Gut Heroes is to talk about and celebrate what works. At the same time, I don't want to fall...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib or Shoulder Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 18/100 Today was a funny one. I felt exhausted and drained, yet happy and emotional. The AS (Ankylosing Spondylitis) was on an even keel, which was surprising given the weekend's activities but somehow, I...

SI Pain: 6/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 16/100 I felt stiff and achy today. I want to say that it's from doing a different form of yoga last night, but I don't think it was. Most of the moves were quite similar. I suspect I'm feeling it from the enormous...

SI Pain: 5/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 14/100 We know stress, inflammation and autoimmune disease symptoms are tightly linked. They are for every human being, regardless of whether they have an autoimmune disease. Both yesterday night and this morning, I...

SI Pain: 2/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 9/100 Just a quick entry today. Everything was fine; it was a beautiful sunny day. I went for two walks and, generally, felt great. However, I had a slight sensation in my right sacroiliac joint. This first occurred...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 8/100 Felt generally very good today and had zero pain. Nice, long walk helped, and didn't have any recurrence of lower back stiffness, even though I spent quite a lot of time at my desk. This was a really, really good...

SI Pain: 1/100 | Rib Pain: 4/100 | Concrete Back: 4/100 It's just shy of a week since I cut out alcohol, and I thought it would be interesting to do a diary note entry. I've gone much longer without alcohol in the past, but this is the first time I'm recording it in...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 3/100 | Concrete Back: 8/100 It has been an amazing run over the last week. Lots of bright green days in the diary. I've been virtually or completely pain-free and I think this probably feels what a normal person feels like. It's not...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 4/100 | Concrete Back: 9/100 Okay, some good news on the AS experiment front. A new test! I'm cutting out alcohol from my diet for the next 3 weeks, starting yesterday. My partner is running a half marathon soon so we decided to go booze...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 7/100 | Concrete Back: 7/100 Thought I would do a quick diary entry today because I think I've had a couple of mini findings. The first is around chocolate. I've been eating a lot of chocolate courverture drops recently. They are to replace...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 10/100 Now that I don't do diary entries every day, I find that if I'm not in pain (or if nothing interesting has happened AS-wise) then often I don't leave a diary entry at all. But something stood out to me today...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 12/100 I thought it would be interesting to do a diary entry today to describe an element of the AS I still sometimes get nearly two years into managing the disease through diet. I woke feeling fine (and definitely...

SI Pain: 1/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 11/100 Today was a pretty average day, AS-wise. There was no 'spiky' pain, but I also didn't feel particularly limber either. It was stunning weather outside, and so I went for two long walks, which really helped the...

SI Pain: 3/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 17/100 Walking is essential. It's something I realised long before I got my official AS diagnosis and long before I started the diet. It's so, so important to keep your joints moving. Whether you have ankylosing...

SI Pain: 6/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 14/100 I was nervous waking up today. I slept fairly well last night in spite of everything. Woke 7 or 8 times but did get some sleep and got up about 7:30am. While I was lying in bed dozing, I was in pain with my left...

SI Pain: 25/100 | Rib Pain: 7/100 | Concrete Back: 11/100 It was a difficult day today. I've been on edge all week with my back, and things just really came to a head this evening when I was sitting down for dinner. I could feel the ankylosing spondylitis creeping...

SI Pain: 6/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 16/100 Today was a strange day. I woke up not feeling great. It wasn't terrible (better than yesterday) and my sleep, though not the best, was ok too. I probably woke 3 or 4 times in the night. When I got up, I had a...

SI Pain: 0/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 3/100 Today I feel great. Literally amazing! It is such an incredible transformation from yesterday where I had some nagging niggles from the AS. All of it was getting me down and my head was in the wrong place. If I...

SI Pain: 3/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 11/100 Last night I woke up a few times with that random, nudging AS awareness. I'm not sleeping as well as I did when I first got back from holiday, so it's an annoying shift backwards. When I properly woke up I was...

SI Pain: 22/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 9/100 Today is the first day I'm potentially coming out of flare! I had an awareness of my left SI joint this morning, but it was less than 9 out of 100 first thing. There's no other pain anywhere else and I slept...

SI Pain: 34/100 | Rib Pain: 0/100 | Concrete Back: 15/100 This is quite an important post. Yesterday, I felt pretty terrible from the AS. I knew that today I would feel bad as well and so I made a decision to try fasting. This is the first time I have ever tried this....