Imagine Dragons Singer Dan Reynolds Talks Chronic Pain Disease

(Radio.com) Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds' life is on the stage and at the age of 21 as the band's success rose, he began to experience what he says was a debilitating pain that made him cancel shows.

The 29-year-old singer recently opened up about the condition, which was diagnosed as ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a chronic condition of the joints that often leads to extreme inflammation and pain.

'It was beyond the pain that you feel when it's just a back ache," he tells People. 'It felt like someone was drilling my nerves. It was right when the band was starting to have minor success -- we were starting to sell out small clubs, and we were playing these very active shows and it started to make me have to cancel shows."

Reynolds explains that he frequently could not physically get on the stage, and in some instances he couldn't move, couldn't sleep and had to stand perfectly still when he performed. Eventually, his brother convinced him to see a rheumatologist to see if he had ankylosing spondylitis, a condition two of his siblings also suffer from.

"I went, and then they did the test to see if it's in your genes -- which it was, because it's an autoimmune disease," he says. 'And then they diagnosed me and put me on a treatment plan, which fixed me almost immediately. Which was another sign that that's what it was." Read more here.

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