Zach Kornfeld from The Try Guys suffers from an autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis. I realize it's a mouthful, ...

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Doctor Reacts To Try Guys | Zach&#39;s Mysterious Illness

Zach from the try guys has come out and said that he has an autoimmune condition I'm about to watch the video and react to it let's get to it I have had really bad back shoes basically our life perfect I'm an osteopathic physician this is gonna go really well my theory is that a lot of the scoliosis that kids are developing these days come from uneven backpacks wearing them on one shoulder or even those desks where you can only lean on one side I ache I I get stiff it kind of started before I went to BuzzFeed a lot of my time would be spent at a computer and I noticed I would just when I sneezed I could feel the pain shoot from my back through the front through my chest cage the way that he's describing his pain right away tells me that there's some kind of inflammation happening at the rib joints because remember the ribs attached to the front of your chest the sternum at least the upper ribs here and then also to your spine in the back the thoracic spine I have a bit of a hypochondria and so whenever something's wrong with me I'm like cancer it's cancer cancer so I told my doctor about this pain he says that's not a thing you're good if you're a doctor and a patient's coming in with a high level of anxiety about a condition and you know they're susceptible to health related anxiety you have to right away be ultra transparent and honest about what you're doing and why you're doing it not just give statements like you're good and move on I decided it was time to go to the chiropractor we took an x-ray turns out I feel scoliosis so scoliosis doesn't always require treatment we blame a lot of problems on patients scoliosis when it's actually not the main cause it's very easy in a patient who's having back pain caused by something completely different to get an x-ray and blame it all on the scoliosis in fact it's the lazy thing to do a small degree of scoliosis shouldn't be causing significant discomfort in fact most cases of scoliosis that we see are extremely mild and are asymptomatic now for anyone who has scoliosis they will be the first people to tell you that my scoliosis is minor it's not because you would get surgery for I tried a lot of things to help this I changed my diet I don't know what the diet would help with scoliosis with unless he had a bone mineral deficiency there the main thing that you do for mild scoliosis like this is not even bracing not surgery obviously Physical Therapy doing some exercise some lifestyle modifications make sure you're not wearing a book bag on only on one side the pain built to a point where I couldn't sleep I woke up at like 4 45 in pain this was every night for for months laying down hurt uh being in my bed hurt I mean living hurt I'm talking about I would wake up in the middle of the night five times and all during this I am I'm working a full-time job but when you're not sleeping it it eats away at you mentally it absolutely does because you don't recover well you're constantly in a hyper sympathetic state where it's like you're basically being chased by a lion you're never relaxing you're never digesting you're never repairing and healing and as a doctor you have to ask these things because when we ask how much disability a certain injury is causing you it's not about whether or not you can walk or run or lift or not it's also about can you rest adequately can you sleep well can you sit well can you perform the duties at your job well I start screaming I think and I feel bad for the doctor but I was like hey this can't continue I'm losing my mind I got referred to a rheumatologist and within minutes the rheumatologist is like oh yeah I think I know what's wrong with you and I'm like what I'm interested what conversation they had in the medical office that led him to go to see a rheumatologist who's essentially an autoimmune joint disease expert why they went that route versus a spinal surgeon for example it could have been that he wasn't interested in spine surgery but there has to have been tip-offs to some sort of autoimmune process I had to go in for an MRI which was scary because at that point I didn't know what was wrong with me he just referred me to an MRI and I'm like oh God what is this MRI is magnetic resonance imaging where you have giant magnets essentially spin around you to give us really good quality images it's really loud it's very claustrophobic some of my patients actually need benzodiazepine medications which are anti-anxiety medications to even be able to get an MRI they do a great job at showing soft tissue like an x-ray for example will show bone quite well or joints well the MRI would show us cartilage tendons ligaments organs it turns out I have Ankylosing Spondylitis Ankylosing Spondylitis is basically an inflammatory autoimmune condition where it usually starts in the sacroiliac joint which is the joint between your hips and one of the lower portions of your spine your sacrum it can get so bad that it starts spreading to other vertebral joints moving up your back where you develop stiffness and in the worst conditions actually the joints fuse and you become very stiff it becomes very painful think about inflammation in the joint this was about four months ago I am happy to report that since that time I've been on medication and I have felt better than I have felt since like childhood I take a drug called Humira so no matter where I am no matter what I'm doing I have to stop what I'm doing and give myself a little shot you ready to get poked we hold on to Zach's medicine I have to take this medication twice a month at the same time so uh it's 8 40 a.m and I gotta take this shot this is a medication that's used as a disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug and these dmards work through different processes but the medication he takes targets tumor necrosis factor and it actually allows the decrease of inflammation where he has an unnecessary increase and so what's great is that you never actually see the needle oh right that's nice see this window right here some yellow liquid is going to pop out of it but that's it now I'm done so I started my medication and for a few months my life was incredible I was able to sleep throughout the night without waking up in pain I wasn't stiff throughout the day it's important to remember as he's talking about his experience with this medication that is not a cure for his condition it's a disease modifying drug so it changes the course the development making the progression slower that's the most important takeaway during the time I was instructed to keep up with physical activity but as the months pass I got a little LAX I was back to where I was the truth is I started ignoring my disease the second I could the moment that my medicine started working I paying attention to it so it was time to go back to the doctor finally ready to accept and confront my symptoms and ready to attack this sickness head on and he said I was fine my inflammatory markers were still low if a patient is coming in and saying they're suffering again with their illness that they feel like it's making a return they're going back to where they were and I come in and I say no your inflammatory cells are good that's not adequate medical care we never treat lab values we don't treat inflammatory cells if a patient's coming in and telling me they have back pain if a patient's telling me that they have terrible crippling anxiety and depressive symptoms I don't say oh your Labs look good so Deuces I decided to make my health a full-time job Physical Therapy twice a week yoga and stretching first thing when I wake up and last thing before I go to bed long box with Bowie every single day instead of letting someone else walk him for me and exercise especially on the days that I don't want to accepting that sometimes being late to work in the morning is a necessary component to my health the movement component and the healing that comes from moving is amazing because whether it's a medication a massage physical therapy all of that is in place so your body heals itself and a body that's not in motion will continue staying not in motion and continue being in pain and after all that I feel okay I still have a baseline of pain most days I don't know that I'm ever gonna fully be a hundred percent again but I am done ignoring my pain that's really powerful because acceptance is a big part of chronic pain a lot of times we promise patients that we can fully get rid of their pain go from a hundred to zero and a lot of times that's not feasible most notably so when it comes to opioid treatments patients that are promised zero pain are giving opioids their pain goes to zero but then we can't continue those in many cases long term unless that there's an end point there's a goal for something check out my video of Michael Reeves and his bladder exploding what click it it's It's the Most Fascinating story he's actually in the video with me click here to check that out and as always stay happy and healthy

Dr.

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