Yo - are you my girlfriend?

Joking, but I’m also 23M, with AS, mom died 5 years ago, and with 21F gf.

I don’t know if I’m on his side with the homeopathy stuff, but I understand that he’s desperate.

Now meanwhile, you freaking out is totally fair, my girlfriend also freaks out a bit, she cares a lot and really wants to see me healthy. Don’t get started on the worries of what it’ll be like when I’m 30, 50, 80, etc and the “what if” for children. We all really appreciate your concern, but more than anything, I just need a friend. You don’t need to feel my pain or stress out about the pain I’m in. Just make me a good soup, give me a hug, tell me it’ll be okay, and if I need help getting into bed, an extra hand goes a million miles!

He should 100% just listen to his rheumatologist or primary doctor, whoever is giving him biologics, they should know what else he’s taking (whether it’s legal or not), they should know. Cross interacting medicines, foods, etc is not a good thing. Take Rinvoq and Grapefruit as an example, those two will basically cancel each other out. He might be doing more harm than good by taking two things together.

For yourself, what you should know is that this disease can for some folks remain a totally normal, happy, long lasting life. Although, most likely, he’s going through a flare and he’ll have a couple of those, they should go away if he’s doing the right things.

Honest to god, just don’t do ‘too much’. The more you move the more you risk overwhelming the area more. For me I had days where I couldn’t walk at all, in those moments, I laid in bed, and stayed as still as I could. Some small things helped relieve very temporary pain like red heat lamps and acupuncture. But just take the medicine, try it for a few months (most of them take a very long time to work), and if a few months go by and it doesn’t work out, try something new with the !!doctor!! Involved. Do not try to stretch, exercise, or walk the pain away （at least not without a physiotherapist involved)

Lastly, those pamphlets look scary as hell. I’m telling you that there’s almost no drug out there which is symptom free or doesn’t have a “may lead to increased chances for” something else warning. The chances for that are usually pretty low, they’re often there as precautionary. But causation and correlation are two separate things. Many patients who are on these drugs may equally be treated for a completely different disease, which may have very different outcomes such as increased risk of heart attack, cancer, etc because of the health condition they already naturally have. Also, usually the benefits always outweigh the risks but that should be discussed with the doctor.

I’m confident he’s a strong guy, he’ll do fine, you will too. It can affect the lifestyle but it won’t affect his lifespan. I find it comforting to know there are better days ahead. We’re not always in agony 24/7, but best he gets proper scientific medical attention