Could Your Back Pain Be Ankylosing Spondylitis?

Ankylosing spondylitis is a painful condition usually begins with lower back pain and can continue chronically for years into the future, sometimes becoming debilitating. Thinking back to your middle school math class, you'll remember learning the term axis, as in the X and Y axes on the coordinate plane or as lines of symmetry in various shapes. Basically, the axis is the midline of something, and the axial skeleton is much the same. The approximately 80 bones of the skeleton that are located in the middle of the body serve as the axis of the whole skeleton and include primarily the skull and the vertebrae of the spine. The rest of the skeleton is attached, or appended, to this axis and thus is called the appendicular skeleton. Together, they form the whole skeleton.

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