u/81ASDAD

I have a long complicated story like most of the folks here it seems to diagnosis. So I’ll spare the details. I’m a 32 year old male police officer in a very busy city. I work graveyard but I’m currently off work due to the AS. Work was killing me. I was having a flair up a week and more miserable than ever. It was a combination of the hours, the stress, fatigue, duty gear etc. I just saw the rheumatologist yesterday. She’s starting me on Humira. She said I should be back to normal in a few months. Is it realistic to get on the meds and just go back to work full duty and lead an otherwise normal life and career? I really am not in a place to retire.

I have been back and forth with work comp over the last 5 years for back/ neck injuries. I’ve had a few minor operations (radio frequency nerve ablations and epidural steroid injections) in my neck and back. I’ve shown on mri to have multiple bulging and a herniated disk. I also have some nerve impingement. I was discharged from work comp for the neck and back about 2 years ago only to have it come back worse than ever about 6 months ago.

I went back to the dr who did additional testing and recommended I see a rheumatologist. I was found to have Ankylosing spondylitis (a shitty arthritis that attacks the spine). I believe that the job contributed to the acceleration of the disease. Work comp accepted the claim for the Ankylosing spondylitis and are for now treating it. But I get the feeling they’re going to try distancing themselves since typically the disease is considered auto immune.

I work graveyard, I have a high stress job, I wear about 30 lbs of gear on my body and I am mostly sedentary in poor posture positions (seated in a car) and occasionally without warning have to be very physically active. All these things are common triggers for the disease.

Anyway, I am considering a lawyer or should I wait till work comp tries to deny something? I feel like sometimes the lawyer can slow things down because all communication has to go thru them.