Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Ever had sciatic pain with AS?

John,

THANKS for the hope you've given me -- I'll behave and see if this disappears again. May I ask how much calcium you take? I was doing 1,000 a day (I have full-blown ospeoporosis), and I take the 30 mg Actonel weekly. Maybe I should up it? I guess 1,500 couldn't hurt . . .

Wow -- wheatgrass juice? At least you got your answer, and thankfully I have mine now, too.

Appreciate the feedback. I'll go straight NSD for a while, and then back to my usual LSD (seems to be okay with me). Well, the pies were good, and the stuffing, and the pecans, and the tangerines . . . Not worth it, though.

Take care,

Patty



With my daughter (Chris) in Mexico, a month before AS kicked my butt!

My cat's web page: http://www.pet-parade.com/petpages2/page.asp?id=351

Yes, have had the sciatic pain for (counting on fingers...uh oh, take off socks....about 20 years) The good news is it comes and goes so you shouldn't be stuck with it at a really intense level for very long. Just wanted to mention you should be taking magnesium with your calcium supplements so they will work better, and try taking at least half of them at bedtime because nights are when calcium is trying to sneak out of your bones. Also wanted to mention watch out for calcium carbonate(the type in Tums) as a calcium supp. because a urologist told me that that type will make you more prone to kidney stones and those adorable little crystals that set off UTI's. (The one good thing I learned from him besides drinking lots of water, is don't take Tums!)

To answer your original question:

Yep! Quite a while ago (?eight years?), way before I was diagnosed, even before I thought I might have fibromyalgia -- when the pain was sporadic.

Best regards,

jcwinnie


FMS -- Trigger Points

Hi, and thanks for the encouragement and advice. I know my multi-vitamin has magnesium in it, but how much is good? That calcium (or lack thereof) sure reminds me when I forget it! And already feeling 90% less nerve pain after just 24-starch-free-hours!

Thrilled to know this isn't constant and forever.

Take care,

Patty



With my daughter (Chris) in Mexico, a month before AS kicked my butt!

My cat's web page: http://www.pet-parade.com/petpages2/page.asp?id=351

Hi, Patty and all:

Boron is very important, also, and most magnesium sold is the oxide, which is a totally useless fraud; magnesium malate is the preferred form.

I did have kidney stones until I began calcium supplementation at about 2g daily, mostly at night. It is difficult to say whether the carbonate is inferior or causes UTI (I have never been prone to this that I know about), but I have taken a lot of my Ca in carbonate form with no problems that I was aware of; it is probably better than none at all.

Best Regards,
John

Yes, My AS started just like John's. At the tender age of 15, it was the worst pain I had ever felt and I soon learned that lying in bed was not the place I wanted to be if there was any chance that I had to sneeze or cough.

I can remember one night, when I had started getting the symptoms of a bad cold and I stood up in the corner of my bedroom most of the night so I could avoid the pain that went with the coughing. Didn't work too well as I slid down the wall after I fell asleep and had to call for help to get back up again. Would hate to go back to those days again.

George

Breb Assyl

Hi Patty,

My AS problems started out with the sciatic pain......pain starting in my hips/buttock area and shooting down my legs. I've had it in various degrees....from mild pain where I had a limp in my walk to more pain and I had to use a cane and hold on to something else I would have fallen from the shooting pains. When I had severe pain, I couldn't walk, stand, sit or lay down without the shooting pains. There was no comfortable position to be in then.

But I didn't have the sciatic problem all the time. It would come and go. Maybe a couple of times a year. Altho it did come without warning for me.

Michelle

Michelle --

So now you don't have it anymore?



With my daughter (Chris) in Mexico, a month before AS kicked my butt!

My cat's web page: http://www.pet-parade.com/petpages2/page.asp?id=351

Hi Patty,

I haven't had it in quite some time (knock on wood ). But it's one of those things where you never forget that kind of pain. I have Celebrex for the AS which I don't use often but my rheumy told me the Celebrex doesn't do anything for the sciatic pain. He gave me Hydrocodone for the sciatic pain and it does help. I only take if absolutely necessary as it make me very tired, sleepy and sluggish. But it does work on the pain.

Michelle

It is thought that there is a lack of magnesium in modern foodstuffs, the lack of which can negatively affect the thryroid (and other body parts, but the thyroid is a metabolism regulator so it's very important). There has been a lot of discussion of this on some animal health boards in the past few years, where some people have been supplementing magnesium to horses who have suffered bouts of laminitis (founder, a metabolic problem which makes their feet very sore) and getting very good results. This piqued my curiosity as I knew from raising sheep (I know, I know, baaaaaah....here come the jokes) that if you didn't mineral supplement correctly you'd get yourself in a heap of trouble with the fresh spring grass having too much of some trace elements and not enough of the others. If you ever bought a bag of sheep mineral you'd see in big letters DOES NOT CONTAIN COPPER, because they might need magnesium to digest all those extra (grass) sugars but the extra copper would kill them. The going theory on the horses (not quite mainstream yet but getting there) is that some horses have a genetic glitch that leaves them too sensitive to cope with modern feeding practices, which tend to be heavy on the carbohydrates from grains, and that gives them sugar overloads when combined with green grass and not enough plain, dry hay. Feeding alfalfa tends to compound this problem in susceptable horses because legumes have chemicals that mimic hormones and tend to furthur interfere with thryroid function. Of course there is a word for this I can't think of right now, it's a word meaning estrogen-like. Note a lot of these "herbal" menopausal over the counter remedies we now see in stores contain legumes like clover.

So therefore, since I had a mare who was borderline laminitic and miserable, who couldn't be let out to graze, and was living on nothing but dry hay, I put her on the cow minerals with Magnesium. Sorry John, but it's got mag-oxide in it. And sure enough, she lost weight and went sound in her hooves and is out in the pasture now. But we kick her out every evening when the others get the alfalfa, and she'll go back to half days this spring. I thought this was pretty cool. I have other horses who can eat twice and much as her easily, with no problems, same pasture, same hay, AND they need grain to hold weight. Has to be genetics. Imagine my coming to this websight for the first time and starting to read about the Diet Primer. Holy sh*t! Humans with starch intolerance! Where have I seen this before? My animals! I haven't talked to a veterinarian in awhile about my spine,(they will give you a great explanation of spondylitis if you ask) but I bet if we all went to vets instead of doctors they would no be scoffing at the the thought that diet affects metabolism and disease processes. They see this every day. They'd want to know what you're doing.

So I just wanted to give some background on why I put myself on the magnesium supplement when I read that it helps with calcium absorbtion. I don't do things on a whim. Magnesium is pretty low in multi-vitamins so I take a separate one to try to bump it up to 100% since it is not harmful in levels over that amount. But what I am curious about is why my fingernails got so much better after starting it if the mag-ox doesn't get used by humans. I know it works in horses, cows, and sheep but what is the thing we are lacking to make use of it?