Imagine Dragons star, Dan Reynolds recalls 'frustrating' diagnosis

Imagine Dragons front man, Dan Reynolds, one of the top musicians of the music industry, suffered from “debilitating” pain that even forced him to cancel performances.

“It was beyond the pain that you feel when it’s just a back ache. It felt like someone was drilling my nerves,” he told PEOPLE magazine of his illness.

The Thunder hitmaker continued, “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.”

“I couldn’t get on stage. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t sleep at night, I couldn’t perform without standing perfectly still. I couldn’t sit down for more than a half an hour,” Dan added.

And yet, many visits to the doctor still couldn’t diagnose the source of his pain, with the singer deeming the experience “frustrating.”

Then, at the suggestion of his brother, the Dan consulted a rheumatologist to see if he had ankylosing spondylitis, a condition that two of his siblings suffer from.

Ankylosing spondylitis, often referenced as AS, is a chronic inflammatory condition of the joints that can lead to extreme pain.

“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 explained, adding, “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.”

Dan also admitted that he hesitated before opening up about his condition with his Imagine Dragons fans.

“I was shy to reveal it because it made me feel like something was wrong with me, or — to say the word disease, it’s such a drastic sounding word,” he said.

The Natural singer further stated, “And I didn’t want to admit to myself, or to anybody, that I was struggling with a disease.”

Now, after opening up, the singer says he’s not sure what he was afraid of and that he wants to support others to through This AS Life Live!, an online, interactive talk show for patients with AS, hosted by patients with AS, which is in partnership with the Spondylitis Association of America (SAA) and Novartis.

“I have a chance to really raise awareness and help people that are just becoming diagnosed to see that there’s actually light at the end of the tunnel. For me, I really wish that there was a place that I could have gone to where I was seeing a direct community. People talking and saying, ‘These are the things I’m feeling. These are the ways that I’m combatting it, and it’s working for me,’” Dan Reynolds concluded.