Ankylosing spondylitis is a disease whose symptoms may appear after ten years of age, but it usually affects men under 45 years old.
Although it is a very debilitating disease, its diagnosis can be delayed up to 9 years, since it is often mistaken for low back pain.
Javier Badilla, a rheumatologist at San Rafael hospital in Alajuela, explained that this is a genetic disease, but its development has also been linked to external environmental factors that have not been proven.
Ankylosing spondylitis is usually characterized by low back pain caused by inflammation of the joints, including vertebral joints. This pain is of an inflammatory nature and manifests itself slowly and gradually.
It appears when the person is at rest and improves with physical activity. The pain usually intensifies in the last hours of the night and early hours of the morning.
The pain and stiffness can go up the spine and neck. The vertebrae are fused, the column loses flexibility and becomes rigid, limiting the movement.
According to Badilla, the disease occurs in 0.5% of the population, but in Costa Rica there is no analysis to determine how many people suffer from it. However, about 15% of cases of low back pain are the result of this illness.
The doctor explained that the later the diagnosis, the more incapacitating it will be. But one of the problems in the diagnosis is that, many times, you cannot always detect the inflammation.
Inflammation and pain may also occur in the joints of the hips, shoulders, knees or ankles, or in areas of the skeleton where the ligaments and tendons are attached to the bones.
Being a systemic disease, it can affect other organs of the body. In some people it can cause fever, loss of appetite, fatigue and even inflammation in organs like lungs and heart, although the latter occurs very rarely.