Things That Made My Ankylosing Spondylitis 10x Worse (A… — Transcript

Alexander Levine shares key mistakes that worsen ankylosing spondylitis and practical tips to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.

Key Takeaways

Avoid aggravating painful areas to prevent worsening ankylosing spondylitis.
Limit processed foods and maintain a healthy weight to reduce inflammation.
Prioritize early evening meals and gentle pre-bed movement to improve sleep quality.
Manage stress actively as it directly impacts symptom severity.
Mental health and social engagement play a critical role in symptom management.

Summary

Avoid movements that cause pain or aggravate inflamed areas to prevent prolonging flares and worsening symptoms.
Processed and ultra-processed foods negatively impact gut health and inflammation; maintaining a healthy weight is crucial.
Eating earlier in the evening helps improve sleep quality and reduces nighttime pain and wake-ups.
Incorporating a gentle movement routine before bed can reduce stiffness and improve sleep without overstimulation.
Stress significantly worsens ankylosing spondylitis symptoms; managing mental health is essential for symptom control.
Hyper-focusing on symptoms and aggressive stretching during flare-ups can exacerbate pain and prolong recovery.
Social engagement and physical activity, like playing basketball, can distract from pain and improve mental well-being.
Extreme diets may offer temporary relief but can cause issues like electrolyte imbalance and low energy.
Sleep is vital for healing; poor sleep due to pain worsens symptoms and creates a negative cycle.
A holistic approach including diet, movement, stress management, and sleep hygiene is key to living better with AS.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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The worst things you can do for ankylosing spondylitis or spondyloarthritis, from someone who's had it for well over a decade, but also from someone who's seen hundreds with this condition at all different stages of the journey. Folks newly diagnosed,

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folks diagnosed for a couple of years, but also folks who've had this 70, 80 years old, fully fused, who have had this for a very long time. So, I've seen all different variations of this condition, this disease, but also from

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my own experience, 37 years old now, my symptoms started in my early 20s. So, I've had symptoms for about 14, 15 years, officially diagnosed a decade ago. I want to share everything I know with the worst things for ankylosing

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spondylitis, but also what's helped me and what's helped others the most feel better, reduce symptoms, live a healthy life. So, the first thing I'm not going to—I'm not going to go in a particular order. I'm just going to

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give my most important things I've put a lot of thought into. The first thing for me is the movement, and not doing things that cause more pain. So, if we have a painful area in the body, the next

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painful, if you wake up with that low back pain, the worst thing we can do is stretch into that area and make it more painful or repeatedly do exercises that cause pain.

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So, if an area is bothering you in the morning, the low back's bothering you, or if you're trying to really open up the spine and you're doing a lot of twisting, but you're feeling that pain, we have to stay away from that

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completely. Those things, feeling pain, especially when you have an inflamed area, can make things incredibly worse.

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It can prolong flares, and it can really add on time to a lot of our symptoms, and ultimately make things a lot worse.

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So, when you're feeling that pain in a certain area, the best course of action generally is get the rest of the body moving, and think about the rest of the body, and let that area calm down, and try as many

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different things as possible. So, don't irritate an already irritated area. Number two, when we think about diet, there's a lot of levers to pull. A lot of people are trying extreme things. Carnivore, keto, vegan diets. A lot of people have tried

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everything in the book. I want to keep this really, really simple because the worst thing for AS in terms of diet is certainly processed foods are just horrible for us, right?

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That doesn't mean we have to get rid of them 100%. I think there's room for a little bit of everything, but processed foods, ultra-processed foods can really give the gut a really hard time, which makes ankylosing spondylitis worse, inflammation worse. Processed

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foods and ultra, ultra high-caloric meals and weight is a huge, huge factor with this.

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So, I want to keep this simple with nutrition because people are getting really extreme, which is fine for some folks, but when I went in extreme carnivore, maybe it worked temporarily for a couple of weeks, but then I had a lot of

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electrolyte issues. I had—I didn't have enough energy to exercise, to move. So, the most important things for me nutritionally have been keeping the calories in the right spot to keep a healthy weight, ultra-processed foods, trying to stay away from them, and the

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most important thing is what I'll get to in the next video because that ties into sleep.

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Number three, sleep. And I, again, no particular order, but I'm going to do a bunch of things. Sleep, lack of sleep with ankylosing spondylitis, we need sleep to heal, but as we all know, you've seen videos from me, I've—I’ve—I’ve woken up at 3:00

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a.m., 4:00 a.m. many times on this journey, low back pain, not being able to sleep, sciatica, rolling over. And then when we don't sleep, it makes symptoms worse. So, for better sleep for me, one of the most important things

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when it comes back to diet is eating earlier in the night. Along with processed foods, this might be my second most important thing in terms of diet, eating earlier in the night. So, if I'm snacking and drinking 9:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m., then I go to

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sleep, I generally wake up with that low back pain. Generally, 100% of the time I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night with the low back pain. SI joints are going to be bothering me if

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I'm doing ultra-processed foods and high calories right before bed, it never ends well. Eating earlier earlier in the night, a couple hours for me, 7:00 p.m., 6:30 p.m., stopping eating then had probably the biggest change on my middle-of-the-night wake-up call.

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Other things that really helped with sleep is a small movement routine before bed, especially if you're someone who maybe we're sitting on the couch for a little bit for a few hours before we go to sleep. We've just been sitting for a

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long time and then we go to sleep. A large part of the sleep with us, unfortunately, is that stillness. So, when we're still for, say, we're sleep, you know, we're in bed for all that time plus laying on the

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couch, 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, especially if you have to sit for work during the day, that's a lot of time sitting, and the body can get just extremely stiff and tight. So, a little movement routine right before bed

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can do wonders and trying different things in that movement routine. So, the two things for me before bed, trying to eat earlier in the night, a little movement routine to get the blood flowing before I go to sleep. Nothing

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crazy because sometimes that can also keep us up, too. Keep us up, too, if we're working out really hard before bed. But a little movement routine can go a long way, kind of reduce that middle-of-the-night wake-up call, which can help us sleep

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better, and then feel better the next day. So, things that are really, really bad for ankylosing spondylitis, we all know it: stress.

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Stress, stress, stress. There's going to be stress in life. Probably my biggest factor over the years has been during stressful events or when I've had struggles with anxiety and OCD, which I've talked about over the years, the AS always gets

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worse. And because I start worrying, the stress goes up, I start hyper-focusing on symptoms.

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And that on its own can really derail us, guys. So doing anything we can—stress is a part of life, but it's more about focusing on every day doing anything we can just for our mental health and doing things that

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just keep us, you know, feeling healthy, feeling good. And I think it's a huge part of it. It's not just about, you know, when it's in terms of kind of managing stress for me, I need to have all these tools available.

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Meditation, mindfulness, the sauna, exercise. But it can be really easy to forget these things when we're—when we're hyper-focusing on symptoms. I've hyper-focused on symptoms over the years.

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Dealt with OCD, especially health anxiety. And whenever I hyper-focus on the symptoms, it goes back to my first thing when I said, "Don't aggravate painful areas." When I start having a little more OCD and anxiety, I start hyper-focusing on maybe the mid back or

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the neck. I'm like, "Oh my god, that's a lot more stiff than I thought it was." And I start messing with it. I start aggressively stretching it just because I'm just so anxious and I'm not thinking straight, right? I

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feed into that anxiety of AS. I hyper-focus, so I start aggressively stretching it. Pain gets worse, gets worse, gets worse, prolongs the flare.

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So I've had this for so long that I really try to be mindful of these things. I try to say, "Don't mess with it. Let's get out there. Get out to the gym.

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Surround yourself with other people, get out in the community." Staying home for me is really difficult with AS. Start hyper-focusing. I like to try to get out, play basketball with friends. The distraction sometimes helps my neck more

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than me stretching it, right? And I just think that shows us that the mental health component, reducing stress every single day, we need to focus on these things. And it can have a huge, huge impact. It's hard to think of it having

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an imp—

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stress the best you can, reducing the anxiety, all these things matter. I've heard it countless times from clients, just stressful events lead to flares and the whole body is in disarray, right? So, managing stress extremely, extremely important. So, so

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far we've talked about not messing with painful areas, not messing with inflamed areas. The nutritional stuff, I took a little different approach, eating earlier in the night.

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Calories are a huge part of this. Eating kind of healthy and nutritious, energy packed foods that fuel the body, very, very important. I'm going to tie everything together here because all these things play together. The nutrition, the sleep, the movement

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routines at night and the morning, increasing our flexibility and strength, staying you know, trying to reduce the stress and the anxiety. All these things play together because when we eat earlier in the night, we do a movement routine, we sleep better, we

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wake up without as much stiffness and tightness, we're able to move more, we're able to eat healthy. All these things play together. So, I think it's really, really important that ankylosing spondylitis, the last thing I will say is

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have as many options and levers to pull as possible. So, we need There's been many things for me on this journey that have that have made things worse, right?

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Certain exercises, even if they were simple, simple stretches for my neck when it was bothering me. There were certain things for me that were just triggers. Overly rotating and twisting, um there were certain things that were just triggers and it made it worse and then

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mentally in the beginning of this journey I said, "Well, what's the point? I'm doing what they're telling me to do, but it's getting worse." And that's the absolute worst mindset with this. We need to have options and try different

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things. That's a big part of this journey. Consistently trying different things across the board, keeping track of everything diet movement exercise to a T. What movements feel good? What can we build on? What exercises feel good?

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Cuz ultimately, we want to improve our flexibility, our strength, the eating stuff, the stress. We want to consistently improve this over time to really help prevent the damage, help prevent the fusion, and having as many options as possible, even when you think

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you've done everything. To this day, I still have these moments where I say, "I've done it all. Why is this still bothering me? I've done it all. Why is this still bothering me?" And then something clicks. I keep trying

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different things. Something clicks and I improve my health in some way and I feel better.

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So, I always like to keep track of these things and I always say, "Just keep trying different things." Again, if something is painful, you're trying all this stuff and it's not working, do something else. Forget about it. Forget

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about it. Stop messing with things that aren't working." And that's really what's helped me the most over the years in terms of consistently getting stronger, flexible, feeling better.

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These small tweaks across the board, especially with the nutritional stuff. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It can be small tweaks. Keep track of everything so you know what works for you. Never give up with this. What I see

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the worst the most with this is someone has tried a lot of things and they're they're fatigued from it.

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They're tired of it, right? And it makes total sense. I've been I've had that scenario a million times, but that's where we can really get in a rut and just get more stiff and tight, especially if an area is bothering you.

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I made a lot of videos saying this. Don't let one area do derail the whole body. The best course of action is if that area is bothering you, let it be and do different things to the rest of

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the body and see how that impacts the area that's bothering you. That's been my biggest key movement and exercise wise and how I've been able to progress things so well. So, in my mind, those pillars are the worst

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for ankylosing spondylitis. They make things incredibly worse. Obviously, the stress, the sleep, the painful exercise, all these things play huge role with this and this is how we can get better each and every day, feel better and ultimately live a

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healthy life. Let me know in the comments what you guys think are the worst things for ankylosing spondylitis.

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What foods, what particular foods is different for everyone, what movements, what exercises make things a lot worse.

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Diet, stress, did you guys notice this with stress over the years? Let me know in the comments.

Topics:ankylosing spondylitisspondyloarthritischronic pain managementinflammationdiet and ASsleep and ASstress managementexercise for ASmental healthliving with AS

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of movements should be avoided with ankylosing spondylitis?

Movements that cause pain or aggravate inflamed areas should be avoided, as they can prolong flares and worsen symptoms.

How does diet affect ankylosing spondylitis symptoms?

Processed and ultra-processed foods can worsen gut health and inflammation, so maintaining a balanced diet and healthy weight is important.

What strategies can improve sleep for people with ankylosing spondylitis?

Eating earlier in the evening and doing a gentle movement routine before bed can reduce stiffness and nighttime pain, improving sleep quality.

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