Well after a 2.5 month wait I finally had my first Rheumy visit. After reading about the troubles a lot of folks had on here I was not sure if this would be a good visit. Well besides him comfirming I have AS it was a good visit. All told he spent like 40 mins one on one time with me and the truth is I like him...He is definetely old school but his basic opinion was yes you have AS and based on all I see and took in from your history this is a normal but mild case. He said he had over 200 AS patients that he has been treating and tracking over the years. He said most of his cases were like mine and that at most he thought my SI's might fuse but that everything else looked good and my ROM's for all my joints is very good. It was weird going thru all the ROM's with him as he is a little guy and I towered over him and I am not that tall. It's hard not to like someone when he give you news like that. I know there are no guarantee's but he did give me a lot of the same advise a lot of folks on here have mentioned and given. We do disagree on a couple of points tho....since he recognized that I am into bodybuilding he did say he did not want me weightlifting...when I balked, he clarified his position that body weight work and reasonable weights were fine but not heavy lifting workouts...I am ok with that..I mentioned that I did want to be very aggressive in making sure no more damage occurs and wanted to explore TNF's...he said that he thought it would be hard for me to get approved for them thru my insurance as my history and symptoms don't warrant it...he did write me a script for an anti imflammatory Relafen and told me to use them for a month and see how I feel....He sent out labs for SED and CRP and he said if they were elevated he might be able to make a case for TNF's. He did not think they would come back very high...He seemed pretty confident that I would not have very much fusion and of course I would like to believe that but since this is my body and my life I am going to give myself every advantage...I probably won't use very much of the Relafen and will move to LSD and see if that helps. He seemed to be of the impression that since I have had this for awhile and did not have much damage that my future with this was very bright....I want to believe that but will keep a close eye on myself going fwd. When I see him in a month I will bring up the starch factor and see where he stands. I guess this was long winded and what I am saying is I liked him and am cautiously optimistic

Chris