Hypermobility or Ehlers-Danlos?

Have you ever wondered if you might have a significant health issue? You looked at your joints, connective tissues, went to a doctor, and they said maybe you have Ehlers Danlos. That may not resonate with many people out there, but this is a connective tissue disorder where you have really loose joints that results in a lot of health issues. The reality is this is not as common as hypermobility in general. So what I want to talk about right now is the difference between generalized hypermobility, which is quite common, and the others, Danlos, which is not rare because I see a fair amount in my clinic. But it's not 20% of the population. It's probably 1 and 1, about 1 of 1 in 300, which is still, if you're in a standard practice, you're going to be seeing it fairly often. So let's talk about the difference first. Ellers Danlos is like extreme form of hypermobility where many patients become disabled. They have multiple joint dislocations, they have really horrible fatigue issues, health problems, chronic fatigue, bad headaches, bad pain syndromes, a lot of different things going on. I want to talk briefly about how do we diagnose elders Danlos? Because if you know what that is, then you can say everything else is hypermobility, which is the vast majority of what I see. So there's a thing called Beighton score. The Beighton score is just a test used for research to diagnose hypermobility. It's looking at thumb. Can you take your thumbs and touch your wrist, which you can see? I can't. Can you take your pinky and push it back 90 degrees? Do your elbows go back past 180 degrees? Same thing with your knees. And then can you like, you know, just stand shoulder width apart, put your palms on the ground, and that gives you a score. And if you score over a certain amount, you get, you know, in a certain age range, you're positive for hypermobility. The problem with this is that many, many people, you know, one connective tissue are everywhere. So. And this doesn't take into account spinal hypermobility, hip hypermobility, it doesn't take into account ankle hypermobility or even hypermobility and other point parts you buy. That's one issue. The second issue with it is it's. Well, I shouldn't say it's an issue. Whenever you have a research criteria for something, whether it's rheumatoid arthritis or depression or anxiety or whatever the diagnosis is, you have to realize that that is for the purpose of scientific Research and getting information about. You need a criteria, you need a description in order to be able to research or something. And with that's what they've basically done with hypermobility or Ellers Danlos. And so unfortunately what that means is you have to neglect a bunch of other stuff. And in medical career, in the medical practitioner who's been practicing for decades, part of what you learn is the space between these silos, the space between specialists, but also the space between these classical definitions and how things are in the real world. So that's the first thing you have to be hypermobile. The second part of Ehlers Danlos is you have secondary issues related to the hypermobility. One is actually joint dislocations, low energy. Now if you're in a car accident and dislocate your hip, that's one thing. But if you. My son's actually done this before, riding around, putting his arm out just on his bike and has shoulder pop out of joint, for example. I have patients who roll in bed and they'll have like their hip hop out of joint or even issues with subluxation where you'll feel vertebrae in your back sublux. But even more things with the second category of criteria with hypermobility is you have these things called pisogenic papules, which are little mini herniations on your heels. And a couple other things is you actually take your thumb and your p and actually wrap. Wrap them over each other. So you just have hypermobility in other joints in your body. And then your arm span is greater than. It's greater than 1.01, I believe, times your height. So you have very long arm span. This is something actually I'll notice in public when I'm just kind of watching people sometimes, you know, people complain back in the day when you have dress codes and young ladies had to wear skirts to their school or whatnot. And one of the rules was, you know, you put your fingers down, the skirt has to come down, your fingertips. Well, young ladies are hypermobile and have long arms. Their skirts are longer and all of a sudden it's like, huh. Or you might be wearing clothes, you realize your arms longer. This can be helpful in sports and athletics. But these are some of the secondary criteria in Ehlers Danlos. And then last one is you don't have really, really bad things like Marfan syndrome, like a history of a first degree relative, mother, father, brother, sister, having aneurysms at a young age. Anyway, that's the Ehlers Danlos kind of diagnosis. The Reality is most people don't have the second group or the third group. They're just hypermobile in general. And that's what I see day in and day out. That's what I see on a routine basis. That's what I have. Multiple family members, have issues, have this condition, have. I don't even have to call it because actually hypermobility can be a benefit. It can actually, you can be a better athlete. My son's hypermobile and he runs really fast. He's got great hand eye coordination. Individuals with hypermobility tend to have bigger cerebellums which mean that they, they have the ability to develop fine motor better. Now if you don't, you're kind of clumsy and off balance a little bit. But if you do, you can be an amazing athlete. The other thing is hypermobile individuals tend to have a bigger amygdala versus their hippocampus. They have a bigger emotional center or emotional potential for emotional intelligence. Which I think is where some of the clairvoyant medium, some of the intuition slash empath stuff I mentioned previously I think sits. But also means you're more you. If you have a personal trauma, physical, sexual, emotional abuse, health issue, that part of your brain can get ramped up and stay ramped up. Which makes self regulatory practices super important. But the thing to keep in mind is this Ehlers Danlos thing. You need to be aware of it because if you have that then you have to look for aneurysms, you have to do cardiac echoes, you have to do eye exams, looking for dislocation of your lens. If you have a family and then there's gene testing that can be done, which typically is not negative. Hopefully we'll have some gene testing for generalized hypermobility in the near future. But right now we just have it for the most severe firm forms which typically, you know, people have multiple health issues and they typically don't need the gene testing because they have family members and they have significant issues. You kind of know they have Ehlers Danlos point being is that most people have hypermobility. It's not ers Danlos. So then what, what do you do? One of the biggest things, one of my passions, if you can say where is finding seeing patients in my clinic that are dealing with health issues who are hypermobile and be like, look, you're the mother, father of this young child who's obviously hypermobile. When I see them in the Clin clinic, who's healthy, who's fine, awesome. Give them a good diet, they need Adequate protein, they need bone broth, they need trace minerals, they need adequate sleep, they need a clean environment. Molded environment is one of the things that can actually trigger mast cells which is thought to be a co stimulator or co cause for hypermobility. So some interesting research on that. Having a safe environment, not a non stressful environment. These would become super critical if you are hypermobile and you have children. So one of my passions is educating people about how do you take care of your kids, how do you get adequate vitamin C, how do you get adequate protein, accurate sleep, how do you check your house if you have mold. Interesting issues with hypermobility is because of stretchiness you tend to have a little bit less blood flow to your tissues. And one thing that loves to live in these low oxygen tissues is Borrelia. It's the infection that causes Lyme disease. And so people that are hypermobile can be more prone to significant Lyme disease tick borne illnesses. And so you know, doing tick checks, keeping your grass cut short using beneficial nematodes which are things you can put on your grass that actually kill the larvae of tics. There's a lot of things to be done to help the health. But anyway it's important to know difference between hypermobility and Ehlers Danlos realizing most people have hypermobility, not elders danlos and then doing starting that self care early on once you trigger a health issue, you have problems. There are therapies that can be done whether it's fascia work, body work, but this is a root cause. I see a lot, lots of health issues that we need to pay more attention to. But unfortunately currently our healthcare system is largely ignoring if not completely ignoring except in specialty centers where they see only the worst cases which is not the most common. So hope this information is helpful. If you're not sure if you're hypermobile, you can look up the edi. The elders Danish society has a thing called a bait and score. If you type it in B E I G H T O N score you'll get this handout you can walk. It was actually designed specifically for non healthcare professionals to actually figure out if they have hypermobility have a risk for elders danlos. That's one of the the key, you know, goals of the Ehlers Daniels society is get more people more educated but also help more people become self aware. So they get the help they need or in my perspective get the prevention they need get. You need sleep, you need clean diet, you know, processed foods. You know, some people ask why are we seeing more of this than this today. I'm like, well, reading less high quality stuff. You won't make good connective tissues if you don't have good protein and good minerals and acid, vitamin C, which is a huge important nutrient for this. So anyway, hope this information is helpful. I'll stop rambling on that. If you have additional questions, things you'd like to talk about, let us know. We want to give you the answers you need to the questions you have. One of our goals is to educate, encourage and empower people so they can take charge of their healthcare. Take care, we'll talk to you soon.