A man from South London said he drank to cope with pain after doctors repeatedly missed his condition
A man from South London who suffered severe back and joint pain from the age of 15 was finally diagnosed with inflammatory arthritis 11 years later, after being wrongly told his pain was due to one leg being shorter than the other or a sports injury.
Arthur Reynolds, 29, began experiencing persistent chest pain aged 15, which doctors initially attributed to playing rugby, advising rest after an X-ray showed no abnormalities. Arthur, who lives in Kennington, south London, with his partner Danni, 29, stopped playing sport on the doctors’ advice and took anti-inflammatories, but his symptoms worsened over the years.
By age 18 he was unable to exercise due to severe lower back pain, which continued into his university years and began affecting his studies, social life, and mental health – he said he often turned to alcohol to help manage the pain.
In 2023, he said he even saw a chiropractor and an osteopath, but said they offered “ridiculous explanations”, such as that he had one leg shorter than the other.
Eventually, a private MRI in late 2023 revealed inflammation, leading to a diagnosis of axial spondyloarthritis – a form of inflammatory arthritis – and treatment with biological medication significantly improved his condition.
Now that his life has “transformed”, he is preparing to climb eight peaks in eight days across Wales to raise awareness of the condition, which, according to the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society, takes eight years on average to diagnose.
Arthur told PA Real Life: “After I stopped exercising I no longer had an outlet to relieve stress, and I became fixated on what I was eating because I couldn’t exercise to manage my weight.
“I had a lot of anxiety about it. I didn’t want to see friends after work or at weekends, and I thought it was going to last forever.”
At the age of 15, Arthur said he began experiencing persistent chest pain which “never shifted”, regardless of what he was doing.
He said he visited his GP at the time and had an X-ray, which showed no broken bones and he was told he “did not have anything to worry about”. Arthur said: “The doctors told me I’d just been playing lots of rugby, to have a rest, and then it would get better.”
However, despite being prescribed anti-inflammatories, his condition did not improve. He also took around seven months off exercise, but said this “made no difference”.
Arthur gradually returned to sport over the years, but by the age of 18 he developed “severe pain” in his lower back, which meant he could not exercise at all.
He said: “I was very frustrated that I couldn’t do what I enjoyed, and there was apparently no reason why – they still hadn’t diagnosed me with anything.”
At the time he was studying at the University of York, and said the pain was so severe he struggled to sit through even a one-hour lecture.
He added: “I had to wriggle around in my seat all the time to try to get comfortable. That made the academic side of university difficult, and because I was never comfortable, it also affected my social life. I drank more than I probably should have to try to cope with the pain.
“If I was going to be out for a long time, I would keep drinking to take the pain away – of course, I’d wake up the next morning in even worse pain, so that certainly didn’t work out very well.”
After graduating and starting his first office job in 2018, his pain became even more “unbearable” due to sitting down all day. He returned to his GP in 2021, was prescribed painkillers and referred to a physiotherapist.
Out of “desperation”, he also arranged a private scan of his back that year in the hope of identifying the cause of the pain.
He said the scan revealed disc damage, and a physiotherapist later suggested he find a job that did not involve sitting at a desk all day.
Arthur said: “I was really quite frustrated by this – especially because sport was something I had always valued.”
He was later referred to an NHS pain specialist, and a genetic test in 2022 showed he did not carry a marker for an inflammatory condition.
He subsequently had a cortisol injection and saw both a chiropractor and an osteopath, but said they offered “ridiculous explanations”, including that one leg was shorter than the other or that he had an extra vertebra in his spine.
His GP then referred him for four more spinal scans in 2022, which again showed damaged discs but “nothing out of the ordinary”.
In 2023, he was referred to an NHS hospital for a pain management session, but said he was told by a physiotherapist that nothing was wrong and that he should go to the gym and lift weights. He said: “I couldn’t do that. I was gutted – I just went home and cried.”
Later that year, he had a private appointment which included an MRI scan that showed inflammation, despite earlier genetic tests suggesting otherwise.
A private consultant subsequently confirmed he had axial spondyloarthritis and prescribed biological medication, which works by targeting specific parts of the immune system to reduce the inflammation that causes pain, stiffness and long-term damage in the spine and joints.
He said this has helped “significantly” and that his life has been “transformed” – he can now socialise more easily, sleep through the night and his mental health has improved.
To raise awareness of the condition, which takes an average of eight years to diagnose, Arthur is planning to climb eight peaks in eight days across the Brecon Beacons, the Black Mountains and Snowdonia in September, in aid of the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society.
“It won’t be easy, but I’m quite a competitive person and I want to raise awareness of the condition,” he added.
To donate to his fundraiser, visit: http://www.gofundme.com/f/support-faster-diagnosis-for-axial-spa
