This time an EDS curveball was a pleasant surprise

As I woke up and realized that I’d been sleeping on my right side, I started inwardly cursing. Nothing good ever comes from me rolling over in my sleep and landing on my right side. In fact, it’s usually a recipe for severe pain, as my badly damaged right shoulder simply can’t handle it.

As I rolled over onto my back, I rotated my arm to try to work out the stiffness and felt a loud pop in the joint. Now this pop wasn’t my typical Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) moment where my joints make Rice Krispies sounds; it was a full-on joint crack.

I was shocked. I realized I must’ve been dealing with a subluxation, or partial separation, in my shoulder without realizing it.

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Usually, I can tell if my shoulder (or any other joint, for that matter) is slightly out of place. It’s common for those of us with EDS to deal with such moments regularly, for one thing. And because my tendons and ligaments are lax, they often don’t cause me the same kind of pain I assume they’d cause someone without EDS, since my EDS body stretches to accommodate the changing position of my bones within the joint.

While the pop was surprising all by itself, I was doubly shocked when I rolled my neck and felt another big one up near my C2 and C3 vertebrae, an area that’s often tight. I also felt side muscles relax after causing me issues for months. Meanwhile, the space between my right shoulder and hip no longer felt pulled together like an awkward accordion.

Thinking through my nighttime gift

My massage therapist and I have been working to calm down the muscles at the bottom of my rib cage for months, but we’ve been going two steps forward and three steps back. I wonder if this release will help us make some forward progress. Additionally, I’ve been dealing with a lot of tightness in my jaw, and that also relaxed after the big release in my neck.

I was baffled. In the 20-plus years I’ve been dealing with my shoulder since its original injury in my teens, I’ve never once had anything positive come from waking up on my right side. I must’ve been lying just right for the pressure of my weight to push my shoulder in exactly the correct way to pop my bones back into place. I’m sure I could never do that again, even if I tried.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not magically fixed after one or two big pops. But wow, do I feel better!

Pain and anxiety, which commonly come with EDS, are tightly intertwined for me. While one doesn’t exactly cause the other, I learned long ago that being in pain can cause my anxiety to spike, and likewise, anxiety can make a pain flare worse. The end of the school year is always a stressful time (I work in a high school), so if this shift will help lower my stress and anxiety level, I’ll take it.

One thing is for sure: While EDS has its patterns for each individual, there are also always anomalies. If someone had told me that waking up on my right side could lead to an improvement rather than a major pain flare, I would’ve said that they were crazy. Even if it never happens again, I’ll take it this time.

And it’s great for me to know that the tightness in my side may be related more directly to my shoulder than I’d realized, so if and when I get that pain again, I know to focus bodywork on my shoulder too, even if it doesn’t seem like that’s where the problem is.

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.