My long time followers may have noticed that I update my home page every month under News and Events to talk about whichever comorbidity or comorbidities (plural, often) it is the awareness month for. E.g. September was both Chronic Pain and Chiari awareness month. Two much too common comorbidities for all of our liking, sigh.
This isn’t going to be a post on how specifically to diagnose the Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) or Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders (HSD) per se, as that’s already been covered here. Rather, I want to draw attention to the many “red herrings” or false leads that we and our doctors often identify and manage to recognize and
I’m doing a lot of warning lately, aren’t I? “Beware of Hammer Syndrome” last month. And now, “Beware of Gatekeeping” this month. Hey, it’s October 2018 as I’m hatching this post, so it sort of fits with the Halloween mood, right? (Beware of Ghosts! Boo!) Editors note: This post was first made available in early
Hammer syndrome? Wait a minute Jan – you’re already talking about Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders (HSD), multiple Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) among other things. You could say you’ve put the “syn” in syndromes, don’t you think? So what’s “Hammer Syndrome”?? Good news: it’s not a disease
“Homeo(stasis)… oh homeo(stasis)… wherefor out thou dysautonomia?” to mangle a phrase with apologies to all you brilliant Shakespeare scholars. And mix some medical metaphors to boot. Anyone who’s been exploring either the Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders (including the forms of EDS) or the highly comorbid Mast Cell Activation Diseases (all forms of mastocytosis, but also the
As you’ve probably guessed by now, we can celebrate one or the other of our comorbities just about every month, including our main awareness month of May – which is also for Fibromyalgia awareness. (September was both Chronic Pain and Chiari Malformation Awareness Month – both very common in the EDS community). Well October is for one
Every chronic illness and issue has an awareness month, and May happens to be the month for Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes Awareness. So prepare to be beat about the ears and eyes with lots of awareness tweets, pins and Facebook posts by your afflicted friends or family. However, THIS year (I’m updating this in April 2017 after
From the online Genetics Home Reference, variable expression is defined as: “Variation in clinical features (type and severity) of a genetic disorder between individuals with the same gene alteration, even within the same family” [italics mine, JG] Definition from: GeneReviews from the University of Washington and the National Center for Biotechnology Information Take the trait for
Alice in Wonderland doesn’t hold a candle to me – or anyone else with Ehlers-Danlos Syndome of any kind, I’d say. As long, winding and mind-bending as her journey down her rabbit-hole seemed, the journey of an EDS patient has an unending supply of twists and turns that would make even the Cheshire Cat blush.
