The newest initiative of Walk Your A.S. Off (a small grassroots community group who is just now filing for non-profit status) is - AS We Walk. AS We Walk allows teams to get together and Walk AS One wearing our 'Do you have BACK PAIN' t-shirts and hand out pamphlets from our partner charities that discuss the need for early detection of A.S. via screening. For people who answer yes to this one simple question we can follow up with these questions:

Onset of pain is usually under 35 years of age and is insidious
Pain persists for more than three months (i.e., it is chronic)
The back pain and stiffness worsen with immobility, especially at night and early morning
The back pain and stiffness tend to ease with physical activity and exercise
NSAIDs are very effective in relieving pain and stiffness in most patients

A phamplet from the Spondylitis Association of America and one from Walk Your A.S. Off will be provided to the participating teams. For any teams participating in other countries we will adjust for those local charity organizations. For more information on Spondylitis please visit us at Walk Your A.S. Off or at the Spondylitis Association of America

More information will be available soon on this challenge we'd like to see teams take up this challenge for World AS Day on May 2nd! We will ask for teams to let us know where they are walking and to take photos of the challenge.

We are looking for corporate and individual sponsorship to cover the cost of the t-shirts and handouts. Sponsorship would be either (silver for $125) or (gold for $250) levels of support and your company logo would be on the t-shirts and handouts as our sponsors for the challenge. Sponsorship inquiries please email walkyourasoff@gmail.com. We will need a minimum of six gold levels or three silver levels to fund and administer this challenge. There will be only a set number of teams who can participate if we reach these sponsorship levels and will be first come first serve once we announce we have been fully funded. If we get more sponsors we'll add more teams. Teams may self fund sponsorship and receive 10 t-shirts and 500 handouts at the silver level or 20 t-shirts and 1000 handouts at the gold level. All shipping is included to one location and the t-shirts will be available in Medium, Large, & X-Large only.

Ankylosing spondylitis (pronounced ank-kih-low-sing spon-dill-eye-tiss), or AS, is a form of arthritis that primarily affects the spine, although other joints can become involved. It causes inflammation of the spinal joints (vertebrae) that can lead to severe, chronic pain and discomfort. In the most advanced cases (but not in all cases), this inflammation can lead to new bone formation on the spine, causing the spine to fuse in a fixed, immobile position, sometimes creating a forward-stooped posture. This forward curvature of the spine is called kyphosis. AS can also cause inflammation, pain and stiffness in other areas of the body such as the shoulders, hips, ribs, heels and small joints of the hands and feet. Sometimes the eyes can become involved (known as Iritis or Uveitis), and rarely, the lungs and heart can be affected. For more information on Spondylitis please visit us at Walk Your A.S. Off or at the Spondylitis Association of America