Lance Bass gets candid about his Psoriatic Arthritis journey: ‘ignores signs’

Lance Bass got candid about his journey as a psoriatic arthritis patient revealing that initially he ignored the symptoms as he thought it was normal.

The singer and dancer, 43, was diagnosed with the condition — which affects nearly 1 million Americans — five years ago after experiencing debilitating symptoms for quite some time.

"I had symptoms before, but you know, I kind of just dealt with it, not knowing exactly what it was. I was a dancer my whole life, so I just kind of figured it was because of dancing," the NSYNC alum tells PEOPLE, adding that he noticed patches of psoriasis on his scalp while dealing with excruciating joint pain.

"It definitely started in my shoulders and then in my knees," he continues. "And again, to me, that was just such a sign of dancer pain, so I just thought it was completely normal, totally ignoring the signs."

We had to do something fun to entertain people, and we do live in a TikTok world, so we created the Double Take campaign, which aims to empower people to recognize the potential early signs of psoriatic arthritis," Bass tells PEOPLE,

Bass also tells PEOPLE he's grateful for finally getting a diagnosis — not only for himself but for his adorable twins, Violet Betty and Alexander James, whom he welcomed with husband Michael Turchin via surrogate in October last year.

"My shoulders were the main problem for me, and if I would've had kids five years ago, I don't even know if I would've been able to feed my kids and hold them in a certain way because you use your shoulders so much," he says. "I'm glad I got that under control before the kids came so that I can actually hold them without being in such excruciating pain."

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