Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS)

What is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a group of inherited disorders that affect the tissues that provide strength and elasticity to your skin, joints, and blood vessels. It is similar to but distinct from Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders (HSD) who have symptoms from increased joint mobility but do not meet the stricter criteria for EDS. People who have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome usually have overly flexible joints and stretchy, fragile skin.  This can result in joint dislocations or sprains that can be painful. 

However, in some patients, pain and other symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, constipation and headaches are blamed on EDS/HSD because no other definite explanation is apparent. In some of those patients, it is likely that the brain is involved in generating or contributing to the symptoms. 

Why would the brain do this? Nearly always, one or more types of stress is involved even if this is not fully recognized at first.  These include:

  1. Adverse Childhood Experiences and their long-term impact including:

    a. Stressful personality traits such as focusing too much on the needs of others, excessive self-criticism, perfectionism, lack of assertiveness and many others.

    b. Unrecognized negative emotions such as anger, fear, shame, grief, or guilt.

    c. Triggers including people, situations or events that remind you of stressful situations.

  2. Current life stresses

  3. Depression, Anxiety or Post-Traumatic Stress

The good news is that all these sources of stress can be successfully diagnosed and treated.

To learn more about whether you might have these issues, try taking the self-diagnostic quiz below. It has 12 ‘Yes or No’ questions. The more questions to which you answer ‘Yes’, the more likely it is that the resources on this website will help you.