UC and ankylosing spondylitis

Well, I've been trying to understand my SI pain for a long time. Are you going to a rheumatologist? Because as a person with UC and joint pain, that is who you should be seeing. I don't think an ortho doc is going to be able to put it all together.

My rheumy mentioned AS to me at the beginning, and it has taken him a long time (3+ years) to mostly rule it out. I have had MRIs taken of my SI joints, my lumbar and sacral spine and my hamstring insertion point on one side (I have chronic hamstring pain as well as SI pain, opposite sides of course). None of my imaging studies show anything except the very common arthritic condition at L5. Even though I've had SI pain for ... 20 years? there is no degradation of my SI joint visible on any imaging study.

So I don't know what you have. But the likelihood of you having AS just because you have SI pain is not very high IMO. A lot of people have chronic SI pain.

Readings I've done in the past said that AS was more likely to occur in male IBDers than in females. I went thru a period of major SI involvement during a severe flare that got me diagnosed with UC in 1980. It made me feel like my lower torso was encased in cement. / Old Hat (31 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)