The consequences of holiday stress when living with EDS

The last couple of weeks have been fun, but stressful. I love the holiday season, but that doesn’t mean that the business and stress of it all doesn’t get to me. I had a blast with my brother and his family, but since they live abroad, we try to pack as much as possible into the time they’re here.

That means that when they head home, I’m exhausted — even more so than usual with my Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). My bodyworker was also sick over the holidays, so I missed one of my scheduled massages. By the time things settled down and I was able to get that treatment, I was definitely feeling my EDS, both physically and emotionally.

Physically, it’s been cold and I’ve been going flat out, and I could feel both in my body. My back was sore, my bad right shoulder flared up, and my right hand was so tight that when I tried to relax it, my fingers still made a half-fist. That came from a combination of tension running down from the shoulder into my elbow, and then from my surgically repaired finger radiating up. Those two things combined made the muscles in my forearm exceptionally tight, which was what caused the hand tension.

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Working out those muscles was painful, but made a massive difference in my comfort. And since my body seems to be connected like a marionette’s, my massage therapist has to work on each piece for it all to relax. If she didn’t help my hand and forearm feel better, we wouldn’t be able to sort out the trigger points in my right shoulder. And if we weren’t able to resolve my right shoulder, we’d struggle to make progress on my left shoulder. And so on.

It can be hard when everything seems so intertwined. In addition to these physical issues connecting with one another, any soreness I feel tends to cause my EDS-related anxiety to get worse. It’s tough when my whole body hurts, as it also tends to make me more tired. When I’m tired, I have a tendency to see small issues as huge obstacles. And that increases my stress level. That completes a circle that can easily snowball if I don’t recognize it and put on the brakes.

Just as I have to take a multilayered approach to sort things out physically, I’ve learned I need to do the same thing emotionally. To lessen my anxiety, I need to work on my physical pain, get plenty of sleep, and talk things out, even if they seem silly. It’s amazing how much having a methodical talk about what’s going on can help me regain perspective when my anxiety starts to skew things into bigger problems than they really are.

Life can be stressful, and clashes of different EDS symptoms can lead to both a pain flare and extra anxiety. It’s important for me to understand those pieces and how they fit together. It helps me to create a plan to tackle them piece by piece, which is much more manageable than looking at my struggles as one big thing to handle. Sometimes it’s those small steps that help me make the biggest progress when I hit a speed bump.

Note: Ehlers-Danlos News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Ehlers-Danlos News or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to Ehlers-Danlos.