The first time a doctor explains your entire life as the symptoms of an often fatal syndrome, you finally feel understood. So grateful to know the life long battle with constant, weird, physical attacks has a name. But you just wish it was a different name…like the flu, or cancer.

There are at least 6 things you must know and follow if you have been assaulted by Ehlers-Danlos:

1:  The first rule of living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, EDS, is to learn that no one, absolutely no one, else, will understand it. Even most doctors. Like the direction of your life, EDS is mercurial, changing just to be inconvenient.

2: Blame someone in your family for all of the dislocated knees, fingers, wrists, hips, toes that you have personally pushed back into their sockets. Blaming the mother is always good, the genetically insufficient collagen that causes EDS and makes you so flexible most likely came from your mother. and grandmother, and great-grandmother…This syndrome just goes on with very little effort to stop it. Continue reading