I would have considered myself to have a “normal” life in my early 20's. I worked a corporate job, with a well paid job, i had a good social life, played sport and exercised regularly. However, when I was 20 my life took a turn. What started out as some pain and tightness in my hips and shoulders, worsened to the point where I was in constant pain, had a limp and stopped exercising completely. Honestly, it was a really difficult stage in my life. I was in constant pain, I felt helpless and I just wanted to be healthy. Despite having numerous scans, seeing many doctors and specialists, they couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me to explain my pain. I tried so many different types of painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs but nothing worked. I felt incredibly frustrated, “they must be missing something” I thought and I kept trying, which only led to more false hope and disappointment. My body felt broken, "why is this happening to me?" I constantly thought. I wanted to be reset to default settings and experience some lasting pain relief, but nothing was working. Finally I was diagnosed with “Ankylosing spondylitis". Whilst I was relieved to get a diagnosis, I was also scared and upset. I was told I wouldn't play sport again, my exercise would be limited and the pain only managed. However the treatment didn't work and the pain got worse. I lost faith in the doctors, the diagnosis didn't make sense to me in the first place and I wanted to understand what was causing the pain. Why did I have it in the first place? I didn’t believe in bad luck. Surely there were steps I could take to reduce the pain without all these drugs? I mean they weren’t helping anyway.