While both multiple sclerosis and ankylosing spondylitis are autoimmune diseases, they are otherwise unrelated and rarely coexist. MS is a disease of the brain and spinal cord, whereas ankylosing spondylitis is a type of inflammatory arthritis that mainly affects the spinal and sacroiliac joints.
Background: Although ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is primarily a disease of the spine and the large joints, it may also have extra-articular involvement. There are limited cases of AS patients developing multiple sclerosis (MS).
Conclusions: Patients with MS present more frequently spondylosis which is associated with younger age, more severe disability and extensive lesions in the brain.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.
Some conditions that doctors may commonly misdiagnose as MS include migraine, RIS, spondylopathy, and neuropathy. To accurately diagnose MS, doctors must rule out conditions with similar symptoms and look for signs and symptoms specific to MS. As such, the process of diagnosing MS may be lengthy and complex.
People should consider the diagnosis of MS if they have one or more of these symptoms: vision loss in one or both eyes. acute paralysis in the legs or along one side of the body. acute numbness and tingling in a limb.
Early symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis might include back pain and stiffness in the lower back and hips, especially in the morning and after periods of inactivity. Neck pain and fatigue also are common. Over time, symptoms might worsen, improve or stop at irregular intervals.
Ankylosing spondylitis is an autoimmune disease and is a type of arthritis of the spine. It causes swelling between your vertebrae, which are the disks that make up your spine, and in the joints between your spine and pelvis. The disease is more common and more severe in men. It often runs in families.
Spinal Disorders
A herniated disc occurs when a disc located between two spinal bones (called vertebrae) is pushed out, irritating nearby nerves. This irritation of nearby nerves can lead to numbness or weakness in the area of the body that correlates with the affected nerves. These symptoms can mimic those of MS.
Many with spinal cord problems and MS have numbness on one side of the body and weakness on the opposite side. They may lose standing balance or have a gait problem characterized by ataxia, such as the inability to walk a straight line. Paralysis and loss of sensation of part of the body are common.
Sjogren's syndrome is an autoimmune disease that can mimic some of the symptoms of MS such as fatigue and joint pain.
Inflammatory diseases like ankylosing spondylitis can result in damage to brain tissue. When this occurs, brain lesions can form. These abnormalities can be diagnosed through medical imaging (such as an MRI or CT scan).
You have a slightly higher risk of developing MS if you have other autoimmune disorders such as thyroid disease, pernicious anemia, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.
Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that often causes pain in your back, hips, and other joints. It can also affect your brain and your ability to perform normal functions. These changes can cause brain fog, memory loss, or brain lesions.
At this time, no single test diagnoses ankylosing spondylitis. Your doctor may order a blood test to check for the HLA-B27 gene, which is present in most people with the disease. You may have the HLA-B27 gene and never develop ankylosing spondylitis, but it can give doctors more information when making a diagnosis.
There are no specific lab tests to identify ankylosing spondylitis. Certain blood tests can check for markers of inflammation, but many different health problems can cause inflammation. Blood can be tested for the HLA-B27 gene.
Back pain and stiffness are usually the main symptoms of AS. You may find: the pain gets better with exercise, but does not improve or gets worse with rest. the pain and stiffness is worse in the morning and at night – you may wake up regularly during the night because of the pain.
Feeling fatigued is one of the most common and troublesome symptoms of MS. It's often described as an overwhelming sense of exhaustion that means it can be a struggle to carry out even the simplest activities.
Here's where MS (typically) starts
You may experience eye pain, blurred vision and headache. It often occurs on one side and can eventually lead to partial or total vision loss. Spinal cord inflammation, or what's called partial transverse myelitis, is the second most common symptom Shoemaker typically sees.
Numbness of the face, body, or extremities (arms and legs) is often the first symptom experienced by those eventually diagnosed as having MS.