My wife has AS, which she inherited from my Father in law, and basically, it doesn't cause too many problems for her in her mid-50s. My Father in law spent a year in hospital in his early 30s with it, as he was in a bar fight and someone broke a stool over his back (he was an RAF policeman breaking up a fight is what he said is why he was in hospital ( except he was involved in a cold war incident where people died and a plane crashed for which no records are available to the public and he wouldn't talk about it and had bad dreams all his life)). His back was basically one bone and so his mobility was very poor but he still soldiered on. My wife just has backaches and pains which even Tramadol won't touch but she is still mobile without other problems. It seems to need a trigger to get very bad. However, it does have other compications as an autoimmune illness, as one day she had massive eye pain which got worse. Went to doctors who spoke to the hospital and booked her to see a doctor in a few weeks. The pain endured so she saw an optician, who sent her straight to the hospital, where they diagnosed Iritus, which is where the body thinks the eye is an infection so the fluid in the eye gets full of white blood cells and so you go blind in that eye. The cure was steroid eye drops every hour 24/7 for 3 weeks, and the consultant at the end said that was the closest anyone had come to losing their sight. There are many other things that she has that can be traced to AS. It;'s a bummer of a thing, and that's if you remain mobile. take care and best of luck in your career, and I hope to speak to you soon on the RT.