My brother was diagnosed with AS at a very early age of, I think, 20. My uncle also has it; he's bent over like a question mark. I thought I was in the clear before mysterious pains appeared last Dec/Jan (03/04); I was diagnosed (as predisposed to having AS, nothing really official, but HLA B27+, pains in all the "right" areas and rapidly progressing stiffness in my neck).
My mom is a nurse practitioner and tells me (rightly or wrongly) that the gene can only be passed through females -- in our case, she was the carrier, but she does not have AS. So it's odd to me to hear that a few of you have fathers with AS. I love telling her that she's wrong and this gives me an opening.
