Hypermobility Joint Syndrome can be a symptom of other conditions, e.g. Ehlers Danlos Syndrome is a systemic connective tissue disorder, where the lack of collagen affects all connective tissue in the body.

What causes hypermobility? Read this article by Dr. Bruno, a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in the state of Texas, who I highly recommend as a hypermobility professional.

---

Supporting the Hypermobile Body

First let's take a look at the common symptoms and reasons to avoid exercise with a hypermobile body.

Loose Painful Joints

• Joints can subluxate or dislocate, or hyper extend or hyper compress.
• Ever collapsing posture that is exhausting to hold up appropriately.
• Neck instability, feeling like the head is too heavy to hold up.
• Joint instability, fear of movement and fear of stillness.
• Do not know what to do to stabilise the joints safely.

Tightly Contracted Muscles

• Hyper contraction through trying to stabilise the joints.
• Unpredictable injuries, inability to grow muscle mass, muscles tear easily.
• Do not know what to do to release physical tension.

Un-Elastic Connective Tissue

• The ligaments, tendons, sinews and fascia systems do not have the same flexibility and pliability as a healthy body.
• Leading to pain, tightening sensations, like the body is being pulled into the foetal position.
• Unpredictable injuries and easy to tear the connective tissue.
• Do not know what to do to release physical tension.

Chronic and Acute Pain

• Always in varying degrees of pain.
• Living with several types or categories of pain.
• Exercise seems to worsen pain, as much as being still seems to worsen pain, feels like a no win situation.
• Do not know how to help lessen pain.
• Feel like you are living your pain viscerally, that it is in control of you.
• Feels like you are fighting the pain daily.

Chronic Fatigue

• Always tired and exhausted, without an off switch.
• Feel like everything is forced, to be able to live your life.
• Always seem to fall into the boom and bust cycle of pushing too much and living with the consequences for a few days to a few weeks.
• Cannot seem to understand your changing baseline.
• If you push yourself to exercise, it's just too much.
• Do not know how to help fatigue.
• Feels like you are fighting yourself over being exhausted.

Fear of Movement

• Developing a fear of exercise as do not feel safe exercising due to impact on pain, joints, connective tissue and fatigue when going outside of a safe range of motion.
• Exercise in the past has meant an increase in fatigue and pain levels.
• Do not know what to do to move or exercise safely.
• Do not understand the benefits on the hypermobile body when exercising daily / frequently.

Fear of Stillness

• Developing a fear of being still as gravity is ever pulling the joints down into a compression which over compresses or hyper extends the joints depending on what position you are being still in.
• Stillness can increase fatigue and pain levels.
• Feels like you must keep moving to keep redistributing the weight around the joints.
• Do not know what to do to help in the times you need to be still e.g. work, sleep, rest, cinema, driving etc.

Poor Proprioception

• It is well documented by medical professionals that people with a hypermobile syndrome have a reduced capability of proprioception, which is body awareness, knowing where you body is located in space without using your eyes.
• This can increase the chances of injury in the hypermobile joints due to low body awareness, which makes exercise much more difficult, as you likely will go too far without even knowing.
• This can decrease confidence in exercise and cause someone to stop exercising.

Memory & Processing

• Living with chronic pain and chronic fatigue has an impact on brain functioning.
• It is typical to live with brain fog, memory and recall problems and difficulty processing.
• Whether this be mixed up speech when talking, or not being able to find the right words, to not being able to function cognitively as you used to.
• Sustained pain and fatigue is brutal on the brain. It is not that your brain is any less, you are just dealing with too much and this is taking precious resources away from your brain.

Low Mental Health

• People living with chronic illness, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and physical restrictions are more likely to experience low mental health, with symptoms of anxiety and depression being common.
• From frustration at not being able to do the things you used to do.
• To anger at being in pain constantly.
• To feeling numb from fatigue.
• To feeling like a burden on other people.
• To feeling misunderstood by everyone.
• To feeling lethargic and run down.
• To isolation and loneliness as your world has gotten smaller.
• These are a mere few, there are many many more knocks on effects to our emotional wellbeing when living with hypermobility. All invisible.

It Doesn't End There

• This list is not meant to be exhaustive or finite as everyone is different. Our hypermobilie bodies are all individual and we sometimes experience the same symptoms and sometimes have many differences. Leave a comment below with more suggestions from your own personal experience.

Read More

• My webpage dedicated to self management strategies for the hypermobile body - looking at each part step by step.
• A holistic view of chronic illness and how the whole of life is effected.