Episode 62 Jamie Boder: Yoga For AS

Introduction: Diagnosed with AS at 18, Jamie opens up about learning to care for his whole self. Inflammatory! with Debbie Wilson and Katy Pieris, navigating life with inflammatory arthritis.

Debbie: Hello and welcome to Inflammatory with Debbie.

Katy: And Katy

Debbie: We’re delighted to be joined by Jamie Boder this week. He was diagnosed with Axial spondyloarthritis at the age of 18, but Jamie, it’s lovely to have you here. if you could just start us from your journey to diagnosis.

Jamie: Hey Debbie, hey Katy and yeah, great to be here. I had symptoms of autoimmunity from like the youngest age, like on reflection, seven years old was having gastro issues, had psoriasis on my toenails and my like hit on my on my heels. I had really bad like my feet were all like cracked when I was a kid. And dots weren’t connected at that point. So, it was kind of like the symptoms have always kind of since I could remember being there. So, at some point there was some sort of, you know, trigger, probably at very early age. And then that kind of just continued. And then when I was about fourteen, I started I remember a s the specific memory, I remember being in the gym and going up to one of the trainers there and be like, my hip hurts. Can you show me a stretch to do for my hip? I just remember that specifically. And that was a referred sacroiliac joint pain. Actually, I reflect now, that was actually like SI joint pain. it was a AS type pain. and then it would kind of just come and go. I am skateboarder and was a skateboarder. And that was like my life. That was my identity. I would be out skateboarding most days. Skateboarders are used to injuries, used to pain, used to falling over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I would fall over, I’d fall on my hip a lot

Katy: And falling off things, I imagine. That’s what I see with people in skate parks.

Jamie: So, this pain just thought was an injury. tried to rehab it, tried to do all the things. Went to different doctors, thought it was growing pains, sciatica, the list goes on. And during that time, I also started to get like kind of IBD type symptoms. inflammatory bowel disease slash IBS, like irritable bowel syndrome. at that point, still not really a thing. But my dad and his dad have got Crohn’s. So was kind of worried about that even then. But again, nothing was diagnosed and then I was at college and I had like a mentor at college, and she had quite bad rheumatoid arthritis and she said, I think you need to see a rheumatologist. So under at that point I was under an orthopaedic surgeon, and I went to an appointment with him, and he gets up an MRI and goes, you’ve got hip bursitis. And I was like, Cool.

Katy: Okay. What’s hip bursitis?

Jamie: I mean the bursa is basically inflammation in the bursa. And it can happen. But interestingly, I’ve heard a lot of people with Axial Spa being given that diagnosis before they were diagnosed with AS, whether it’s correlated or it was a misdiagnosis, I don’t know. But I basically said to him, I need see rheumatologist. He’s like, no, you don’t, it’s got hip bursitis. And I like basically argued with the guy. And

Katy: Well done. Because I think that’s quite hard, especially if you’re a teenager, to actually have the confidence to do that. So massive credit and the mentor that you had that sort of supported you.

Jamie: Yeah, I think it was yeah, it was it was because of Joan supporting me to push for it and I yeah, saw rheumatologist a few weeks after and was diagnosed there and then.

Katy Amazing. wow. Cause you don’t really Yeah.

Debbie: Wow, that’s quite quick though.

Jamie: Yeah.

Debbie: to then seeing someone because obviously referral rates at the moment are not, obviously depending on where you live around the country, but that’s really good. Get that so quickly. But how did you then feel though? get,

Jamie: Yeah, it was quite quick. So, my first question was, can I keep skateboarding? And she was like and she was like, I don’t see why not. and I was like, Cool, great. It’s just an injury, like stoked. And then I went online, and that’s when, you know, those cartoons when someone’s like walking along and then like a circle gets drawn around them, and then all of a sudden that circle disappears, and then they just like, and they like plunge down. I feel like that that’s what happened. It was just like I was like, okay, fine, like whatever, and then just like yeah, hit with just ooh.

Everything, all the emotions and a lot of grief, a lot of fear. And I do think you know, support groups, online spaces can definitely have a place in in this world. But when you’re newly diagnosed, I think this is something I share with people as well. you know, in hindsight, that these sort of spaces, the online support groups, especially like the kind of Facebook groups, you usually hear two ends of the spectrum: people who are newly diagnosed and looking for answers, and people who are having a really tough time and need a space to share what they’re experiencing. You don’t hear about the space in between. And so, you’re hearing these crazy stories and you’re like, my God, my life’s over. Like that’s how I felt at the time. so, I say that that was kind of the journey with that really, yeah.

Katy: Yeah. Yeah, and you were eighteen, weren’t you, when you were diagnosed. So, in terms of being an eighteen-year-old young man, how did you feel and how did you tell friendship groups or people that you go skateboarding with? What did that look like?

Jamie: It was because I hardly understood it. I kind of thought that it was just similar to like an injury for quite a long time. I still had this kind of denial type thing for quite a long time. the thing that was really hard is like most of my friendship group were like skateboarders. And so, we’d have this like bond of doing something together, the socializing and an activity. And I just kind of stopped seeing a lot of those guys because I couldn’t face just going out and not being able to skate. Cause at that point I could hardly walk. Like I was like there were days when I was just like in the foetal position. Like walking was crazy. and for anyone who has like axial spa, like the sacroiliac joint pain when it’s like at its worst, it is just like you literally can’t like put any load on one leg. It’s insane.

Katy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie: And I’m sure it’s similar with other forms of inflammatory arthritis where things are at their worst, like things just like walking, even walking is just like insane. And so the idea of skateboarding was just like I just couldn’t even face the idea of that. so yeah, it was it really sucked. but I think thankfully I didn’t stay in that place for too long, I’d say.

Katy: Okay. And what do you think helped you? How what did that early treatment, did you what kind of support did the hospital offer? how did you get through that period?

Jamie: Yeah. Well, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease within the same like month. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

Katy: my gosh. And so then treatment must be quite tricky, I don’t know how Crohn’s is treated, but it must be quite tricky then to find that balance between the two, I’m assuming.

Jamie: For sure. So as far as I’m aware, usually there is like a ladder of like treatment options, right? But NSAIDs with Crohn’s is particularly problematic because obviously

Debbie: Impacts on your stomach doesn’t it as well.

Katy: Yes, it impacts all your stomach, yeah.

Jamie: Yeah. And like even without Crohn’s, long term use of NSAIDs, you know, we know aren’t ideal. So, but yeah, so that was I was quite limited in that in that perspective. And so, they treated the Crohn’s at the time. I was on a bunch of different I was on like steroids, a bunch of other stuff. and then I did start biologics guess it was like six months into diagnosis or something like that. and biologics can work on similar pathways for Crohn’s and AS. There are ones that help with both, right? So, like TNF Alpha, for example, like that pathway can be involved in Crohn’s and axial spar, right? So, like if you’re taking biologic that works on that, then it you know can definitely can definitely help.

Katy: That’s quite interesting actually, knowing that that there’s a similar thing reduce across both.

Jamie: Yeah, I mean it’s never going to be a perfect science because you just there’s so many inflammatory pathways involved with inflammation, right? but thankfully, yeah, Crohn’s settled down pretty well. and at that same time, I just became absolutely obsessed with what I could do outside of medication as well. And so those two things kind of coincided, and that had a positive cascading effect, I would say. Yeah.

Debbie: Did you find your, because obviously you’re under someone for your Crohn’s and someone for your AxSpA, did you find that they talk to each other at all or not?

Jamie: It’s starting to happen more nowadays. There are like especially the bigger hospitals do have their everything’s in-house and they talk to each other. I’ve never experienced that myself. So for me it’s just like I’ll get the letters, I’ll take photos of them, I’ll send them to these people, and you know, having that back and forth.

Katy: You do the sort of coordination of cross communication.

Debbie: and it is extra stress on you as well as the patient and it is so hard.

Jamie: Yeah, it’s with GPs as well, you know, like it was recently I needed some bloods done and I like spoke to the G P and I was like, Cool, I need to get these buds done. They’re like, Yeah, we need to speak to you first to like ask why I’m like, Maybe take my word for it? I don’t know, like

Debbie: Yes. I don’t know, actually anyone who go into a GP surgery can have a blood test. I’m bored today. That doesn’t happen.

Jamie: Yeah, I’m so bored. I really No, like but I just wanna see what my CRP levels are. I just felt fancy it’s why not?

Katy: I really want some social interaction with someone jabbing something into my arm because I don’t do enough of that already. And actually talking of blood tests and monitoring, having two inflammatory conditions, does that double that load of appointments, blood tests, monitoring, all the stuff that can just be problematic?

Jamie Boder: Yeah, definitely it’s just a lot of in the early days a lot of hospital visits. and just felt like it was all one thing, which in some ways made the burden, emotional burden maybe lighter than just having one in the sense of like seeing them as separate. It was always sort of I’ve got Crohn’s and AS. Like it’s it was kind of two things together. Because again, similar to like AS, you go online you type in the word Crohn’s and you hear stories like it can get really scary. and it’s one of those things that Crohn’s can be life-threatening as well, you know. it’s scary. And you know, 10% of patients with at least axial spondyloarthritis have inflammatory bowel disease. You know, that’s pretty, pretty high.

Katy: Yeah, that is a high percentage.

Jamie: yeah, and you know, I think we’re gonna start to see in the next few years that I think a lot of people with inflammatory arthritis, have, preclinical symptoms of like inflammatory bowel esque things, right? because we know how much like the microbiome plays a role in, well, we’re starting to understand, you know, through research how much that that impacts conditions like inflammatory arthritis. Yeah.

Debbie: Yeah, there was actually a talk at EULAR the major congress from Europe that I went to the other week. Okay, did you go to that session?

Katy: And you were there as well, weren’t you, Jamie? Yeah.

Jamie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I missed it.

Debbie: There’s a lot more research going into the microbiome. So, when you said that then you looked into everything else apart from the medication, which I think is a normal reaction to do that. That’s what everyone generally tries to do because you’re trying to control something that is uncontrollable at that time. What did you look into and did you find anything help for you? Did anything work?

Jamie: Yeah. I saw a chiropractor and that that’s not the thing that works, by the way. I just want to say that and preface that. Okay.

Debbie: I’ve seen a chiropractor as well before and

Katy: They scare me, I’m too scared to go to a chiropractor.

Jamie: No, I they’re definitely not recommended for people with inflammatory arthritis. at least with actual spa, the nice guidelines like don’t recommend chiropractic treatment. Now there are amazing chiropractors out there, I just want to say that understand like biomechanics really well and can help give really good rehabilitation, like training, movement, they can help with like soft tissue massage, they can help with like that side of thing.

Katy: I didn’t know that. Interesting.

Jamie: Brilliant. It but it’s the spinal adjustments on inflamed joints that like a no, like we need to not do that. Yeah, yeah.

Katy: Yeah, ’cause tha that’s the thing that I always scare I just don’t like things being cracked regardless of how I feel that day.

Jamie: Yeah. but I went see his chiropractor but interestingly what happened is one of his colleagues had AS, another chiropractor, which was insane. Like the spontaneity of that happening. And yeah, chatted to him for ages. And he was like a nutritionist, I think, or a nutrition coach, and basically like gave me a we did a whole, we went big deep dive. We tested my gut, and did like a big test on my microbiome and saw like a ton of issues and then yeah, basically like I did what he told me to do for a for a good few years. And again, it’s not a perfect science for sure. Yeah.

Katy: And is it quite personalized to you and then what those tests reveal, rather than it being sort of somebody else could well, I guess somebody else could copy what you’ve done, but it might not necessarily work. ‘Cause it needs to be a personalised process.

Jamie: Absolutely. So, and it’s kind of understanding what was happening at that point and then basically looking at how we could like rebuild and improve the microbiome. and that was that was a good few years. And I will say during that time I probably like developed orthorexia. Like I was obsessed with healthy eating, and it got like and for those who don’t know what orthorexia is, it’s when you’re absolutely like terrified of unhealthy foods and your whole world is obsessed with controlling healthy foods, need to have this food and this food. And yeah, just got super obsessed. And so that was obviously like a pretty bad side effect of that journey. And going back, what I wish I would have done was probably more time to think about how I could do things in a way that was perhaps a little bit more sustainable and a little bit less intense on like my mental health because I just think some of these like protocols out there can just be so restrictive. and some people can do them, compartmentalize it and then move on. But like it had pretty bad impact on me, I’d say.

Katy: Yeah, ’cause I always think you need a bit of joy in eating and sometimes that might mean eating the wrong things, but it’s about balance.

Jamie: Yeah. For sure. And I think it’s it’s also about like kind of understanding that if you eat, you know, a certain food that’s not on a list, it’s not going to kill you, you’re gonna be okay, like it’s not gonna make your body inflames. But what happened is I just got, yeah, like deep down that rabbit hole. But I’m kinda thankful for that ’cause it’s helped me with the work I do now and in terms of just helping to support others like know that it’s like actually we need to be really mindful of like how we think about food and navigating that and start with the low-hanging fruit first. And then obviously the more personalized it can be, the better. But yeah, it in short, it had an immense impact. and then also got really into yoga at the time and just went completely deep into that and like somatic practices are just, It was the first time I’ve kind of got in touch with my body ever and started to listen to what my body was saying, started to kind of connect with what I was experiencing. And I think for me that was just huge. It really was.

Debbie: Because one of the comments when people say they’re diagnosed with any sort of type of inflammatory arthritis is they say, do yoga, will cure it. So, question to you, did it cure it for you?

Jamie: No, not at all.

Katy: It just helps, doesn’t

Debbie: How did you get into that?

Jamie: For those mind body practices are just absolutely incredible with I personally believe like autoimmune conditions because I think people think about the benefits of stretching, but yoga like I would argue is probably like

Katy: It’s the breathing, isn’t it? The breathing and the yeah.

Jamie: It’s essentially all of the non-physical practices that can be really excellent for actually improving symptoms and also helping someone with like the management. So essentially a lot of the practices that are done in in yoga, whether that’s breathing exercises or deep relaxation techniques, something called yoga Nidra,

Katy: I’ve never heard of that. What was what’s that?

Jamie: is absolutely incredible for fatigue. Yeah. So you basically like you you sit down or lie down, you get comfortable and you listen to a script for twenty, thirty minutes and it trains your body into a sleep like state. it’s one of the most restorative things that like I do in my day. And for me it’s like a nap on steroids. It’s absolutely like a God send for fatigue. And so that’s where for me it’s like these tools. It’s rather than like trying to find like a, you know, a fix. It’s like, let’s use a tool that’s going to help me to feel better in my body. Yeah, those non-physical practices really opened things up for me. And then like looking into what I could do, it kind of started me on a catalyst of things I could do to improve my situation and kind of gave me a feeling of control and energy back. and that that was like really important for me at time.

As you said, like yoga isn’t was didn’t cure me, but what it did is it like helped me to start to get more in touch with my body, start to see what I needed and become far more curious. And that’s where like these mind body practices have such importance and can really help. And whether that be, it can be it’s something else like Tai Chi, right? But it’s where you’re able to, improve what we’d call interoception, which is that sensations inside ourselves. What’s happen am I hungry? Am I am I fatigued? Am I tired? Am I warm? Am I cold? Like what’s happening? And I think for so long it was just like pain.

Debbie: Yep.

Katy: I see, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jamie: What’s underneath the pain, what’s going on aside from just that that symptom. I think for me that was really helpful.

Debbie: I suppose it gives you also that time because I suppose everyday life now is so busy.

Katy: We’re not actually that connected to ourselves anymore, are we? As just gen as a general population, we just go from A to B to C, go to bed, get up, do the same. Yeah.

Debbie: But this is the thing. Yep. Yeah, eat, sleep, repeat. That’s all we seem to do. But actually it is trying to give yourself, and I think this is kind of what comes up with our other guests as well, is that self-compassion, but that self-compassion about learning about what’s going on in your body as well. Because as I think you were saying with when we’re with stress and everything, we know that that impacts on us, but it’s the nervous system as well that is…going crazy and then that obviously then interacts with our immune system and that goes crazy as well. So, it’s learning about your nervous system and trying to calm that and then that can help as well. But it’s just in society at the moment, life is just 24 seven crazy.

Jamie: Yeah, absolutely. And for anyone who’s kind of interested in more of this, I’d recommend reading a book called The Great Nerve. It’s a book that’s come out recently that looks into the impact of the vagus nerve on our health, and it has a whole section on inflammatory conditions. There’s some research coming up coming out at the moment of surgical implants into the vagus nerve and helping and helping

Katy: Okay. I’ve seen this on a few things, yeah.

Jamie: People with rheumatoid arthritis into clinical remote.

Kat: Yeah, yeah, and it’s yeah, it’s predominantly being tested on people with rheumatoid arthritis, isn’t it?

Jamie: Yeah. And what we are starting to understand is like the vagus nerve has a role on so much, like it influences those inflammatory pathways, which is insane, and really cool. But luckily there are things we can do aside from just implanting a chip that helps to influence vagal toning. And that can be things from like learning how to really down regulate our breathing, those deep relaxation techniques that I talked about, exercise, like there there’s a lot of things that influence the vagus nerve. And again, it’s not like do these things and you’ll be fixed. It’s like, well, if this gives you like a five percent improvement, like that’s great. Like take that.

Katy: Yeah, because it’s we we’ve talked about in other episodes, like just each one percent difference that you can build, whether it’s kind of one percent better at movement, but one percent less pain, it it all kind of builds up over time, to help you overall, doesn’t it?

Jamie: Yeah. It does and I always say to people like, Okay, worst case scenario, like you’re looking after your body more. It doesn’t matter about so much like just thinking about this just in terms of inflammation, I’m always in favour of doing things that are not only safe and have like good evidence based behind it, but also things that have a net positive just on your mental health, on like your physical health. And if also you then get a reduction in symptoms, that’s brilliant. but what can happen is if we go down that rabbit hole of being like I’m going to, you know, hang from a tree and eat like plums on every ten-minute interval and it will get rid of my inflammation, like that that’s where it’s not real.

Katy: It’s not practical,

Jamie: It’s not that good, it’s not really doing much for our life. So it’s like how can we support the whole self? Like think about not just an inflamed joint but a person. Like we’re humans and we need to support our ourself, not just a joint in a certain part of the spine or our wrists or our knees. Like we’re people, you know.

Katy: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that actually. That’s so that’s so important actually to always try and go back to that it’s about everything, not just that one problem you’ve got, because actually it’s a multitude of things that all impact it. No.

Debbie: Yeah.

Katy: and what does today look like for you, Jamie? it you’ve obviously done a lot of work behind the scenes yourself in terms of, looking after yourself and making those improvements. give us a little bit of a picture of how your day to day is now and what are your hopes for the future?

Jamie: Yeah, so movement just became my obsession over the years. and I did I trained as a yoga teacher, did a bunch of further training with an organization in the States called Yoga for Arthritis. Stephanie Munaz is founder of that organization. She’s a dear friend of mine and so I did a lot of mentoring with her and then when I was at university, I did modules in strength and conditioning and nutrition. and then I also trained as a PT and just tried to just gain more practical tools. I’ve worked now with a quite a lot of people with inflammatory arthritis, especially axial spondyloarthritis, and so that’s kind of my big passion. That’s what I do as a day job now. And I’m the director of an organization called Yoga For AS which provides yoga and other movement modalities like strength training for people with AS but other forms of inflammatory arthritis as well. and for me personally, I’ve been really lucky to over the last 10 years do not have any disease progression and things have been basically in clinical remission. I have been off biologics for the last five years. Yep.

Katy: And quick question, cause we talked about it the other week. What does clinical remission mean to you? And what do you believe the actual definition of clinical remission is?

Jamie: Yeah, yeah. Definitely and clinical remission according to rheumatologist is like a low bath index score. Now, obviously, with other inflammatory arthritis conditions, you have like other indexes. So, you’ll put in your like how you’re feeling, can you put on your socks? etc, etc.?

Katy: Yeah. Can you dress? Can you yeah, can you wash? Yeah.

Jamie: Yeah, if that’s a low score, like that’s one indication. Active inflammation on an MRI is another thing. Inflammation on bloods is another thing. And then finally symptoms, which comes back to the first point about like an index. and then any disease progression. If all of those are in check, then it would be class as clinical remission. People can still during that time experience fatigue, stiffness, I would I would argue fatigue and stiffness are the are the two. and like the mental health impact.

Katy: Yep.

Jamie: Pain wise, I would argue if someone’s in pain, like that’s because there’s inflammation, therefore they’re they’re not in clinical remission. that’s my definition, right? So that’s

Katy: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, just quite

Debbie: Yeah, it differs.

Katy: Intrigued to hear what like other patients feel.

Jamie: Absolutely. And but yeah, basically on that journey, so I was managing pretty well without any medication. And then it’s something I haven’t it’s the first time I’ve talked about this publicly and I’m, you know, going to definitely talk about it more online, but had the worst flair of my life in January. it was insane. I was on holiday and had food poisoning. And then I think that may have triggered things off, but I’d also I’d also had a really difficult year previous, like just a lot of stuff going on and it was a perfect storm really. and yeah, it was gnarly. It was really bad. and it took me right back to that place when I was first diagnosed. And that’s the thing, like, you know, I do all the things and I have done all the things. Mm-hmm. But my I just think like if you know, this is cup, right? And

Katy: Yeah, you’re doing everything right, you know. Yeah.

Jamie: For a long time though it was it wasn’t full. It was I was able to keep the coffee in the cup. But what happened is it just got too high and overfilled. It’s spilt out. Too much stuff started to build up. So but luckily things have settled down now for the most part. but I had recent MRI. It didn’t thankfully show any progression up the spine. My spine has is still completely fine and that’s great after 10 years, but it did show active inflammation on my sacroiliac joints and about I think he said about 20% erosion compared to the last MRI on my SI joints. and so now I’ve always said to people, like for me the risk reward ratio, which I calculated with my rheumatologist in favour of medication and not in favour, like we always weighed that up together. And the data now is moving more towards, going back on medication. So it’s not something that’s like set in stone yet and I’m going to review and it might be that this was just a really bad flare and it settled down and if we were to do another MRI and if things have stabilized then like that would maybe be a different picture. But yeah, it’s so you know, it just shows, right? It sucks because you can be on a Yeah.

Katy: So up it’s just up and down, isn’t it? You can feel like you’re in a really positive place and then it can just blow up

Jamie: Yeah. And like day to day I help people improve symptoms and get more confidence and get stronger and you know, look at the lifestyle side of things. you can do those things and they can definitely help. And it might be what would have happened had I not done all those things, where would have I been at? Like I it I just think that despite that though. If something happens and you hear this often, yes, stress can come into it, but just all sorts of things, infections, illnesses, grief, like whatever it may be, like a situation happens and it just absolutely kicks off yeah.

Katy: Yeah. Yeah, because Debbie’s had a really hard start this year. So, you know, and like life happens, doesn’t it? It and it and it always impacts the whole of your health.

Debbie: It does. I think that’s where you have to think of yourself as human and do things do impact on ways that you didn’t realize but actually, and I think as you say, after you know, so much negative stuff after negative stress and everything that really can get to you and how you then react again is just showing that things do react in different ways that you didn’t know. But yeah.

Jamie: Yeah.

Debbie: So yeah, but it’s been an absolutely fascinating conversation, Jamie. Thank you so much for giving up your time. You said you were online. So have you got an Instagram handle? We’re about to start you online so people can interact.

Jamie: yeah, just @JamieBoder and @YogaForAS yeah, that’s it.

Debbie: Well, we’ll put them on our show notes. So yeah, thank you again so much. Absolutely fascinating conversation. Please do sign up to our newsletter. We are at inflammatoryarthritis.org. We are on social media, we’re on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky and LinkedIn, so please do comment and follow. Also we’re on YouTube, so if you want to watch this episode, please go over there and you can watch it and download and subscribe. But until next week, Katy it’s goodbye.

Katy: Goodbye.

Jamie Boder joins Debbie and Katy for a powerful, honest conversation about being diagnosed with Axial Spondyloarthritis (AxSpA) at 18, navigating Crohn’s disease, and learning to care for his whole self through movement, yoga, and mind–body practices. Jamie shares the emotional impact of diagnosis, the challenges of early adulthood with chronic illness, and the tools that helped him reclaim agency, stability, and joy.

Key Topics

• Early autoimmune symptoms and delayed diagnosis
• Emotional impact of AxSpA at 18
• Losing identity and social connection through reduced mobility
• Dual diagnosis: AxSpA + Crohn’s disease
• Treatment limitations (NSAIDs, biologics, care coordination)
• Microbiome testing and the risks of extreme dietary control
• Yoga, somatic practices, interoception, and fatigue management
• Vagus nerve research and nervous system regulation
• Sustainable lifestyle changes vs. “cure culture”
• Jamie’s recent flare and reassessing medication
• Building Yoga for AS and supporting the community

Key words

Axial Spondyloarthritis, AxSpA, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Crohn’s Disease, Inflammatory Arthritis, Yoga for AS, Jamie Boder, microbiome, vagus nerve, fatigue management, yoga nidra, somatic practices, autoimmune health, remission, inflammatory bowel disease, IBD, chronic illness support, nervous system regulation.

Resources Mentioned

• The Great Nerve, book exploring vagus nerve and inflammation
• Yoga Nidra (guided deep relaxation for fatigue)
• Yoga for Arthritis (training organisation)
• Yoga for AS, Jamie’s organisation supporting AxSpA-friendly movement

Connect with Jamie

• Instagram: @JamieBoder
• Instagram: @YogaForAS

Connect with IAUK

• Website: inflammatoryarthritis.org
• Newsletter: Sign up for updates and new episodes
• Social: Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, LinkedIn
• YouTube: Watch full episodes, subscribe, and share

Disclaimer: Debbie and Katy are not medical professionals. They share personal experiences of living with IA to build connection and community. The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. We talk about our personal health journeys, and the podcast is not intended to provide professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We are not medical professionals and in no way claim to be medically trained. The podcast does not take responsibility for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of the podcast. The podcast does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of third-party content. For more information, head to https://inflammatoryarthritis.org/