Spondyloarthritis is a form of arthritis that is considered an autoimmune disease. This disease generally attacks the joints of the spinal column, though other joints in the body may be affected by this condition. Except in the case of this disease affecting the digestive system, what differentiates Spondyloarthritis from other forms of arthritis is the location that this disease usually affects your joints. Spondyloarthritis is known to affect the junction where tendons and ligaments attach to the bone. These sites are referred to as entheses. There are several different forms of Spondyloarthritis:

• Axial Spondylarthritis: this is when the disease attacks mainly your pelvic girdle and/or spine
• Peripheral Spondyloarthritis: this form of the disease attacks the joints of the arms and legs
• Reactive Arthritis: occurs in response to an infection in the body, this was once called Reiter’s Syndrome
• Juvenile arthritis
• Psoriatic Arthritis: a form of arthritis that occurs in people with psoriasis in response to chronic inflammation damaging joints
• Enteropathic arthritis/spondylitis: These forms of the disease occur in response to Inflammatory Bowel Disease and consist of Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis
• Ankylosing Spondylitis: arthritis of the spine that leads to an eventual fusing of the spinal column

The different forms of Spondyloarthritis are much more common in men than women and symptoms of this disease generally begin to appear in a person’s teens or twenties.