About a week and a half ago, I woke up in the middle of the night sleeping on my right side, which is always bad news. My right shoulder is badly damaged, and after spending over 20 years managing it, my body seems to know instinctively not to roll…

People with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) or hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD) experience an earlier onset of pain, which typically affects more body areas and with a longer duration, than individuals with pain due to other conditions. Those are the findings of a new study by researchers in Sweden, who…

Adolescents with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) or hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD) are more sensitive to pain in different areas of their body, a recent study shows. Exercise was found to help reduce pain sensitivity in both groups for the muscles involved, though not equally in the muscles tested.

The past few weeks at work have been enormously stressful. We school counselors often refer to this month as “Sucktober,” because it tends to be when the honeymoon of a new school year has worn off. Plus, big college application deadlines are looming, and student energy has begun to lag.

I’ve been fighting plantar fasciitis on and off for over a year. While I’ve tried to do some things to manage it, mostly I’ve just ignored it. That’s one of my frequent go-to, but not-so-great, coping mechanisms for physical pain. As a result, my foot pain worsened…

Psychological interventions to address pain and quality of life for people with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and related conditions are most effective when delivered alongside physiotherapy in an outpatient or community setting, according to a review study. “The results confirmed the primary aim, in that psychological interventions are successful at…

I’m pretty sure that my extreme stubbornness is one of the ways I persevere in managing my Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, as well as part of the reason I have pain flares. Recently, my life has been crazy busy. I’ve moved and been trying to get all my teacher…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing some necessary maintenance on the farm where I live: working outside on plant beds, fixing fences, replacing a broken light fixture, and more. These types of activities tend to make most people sore, regardless of whether or not they have…

Last in a series. Read part one.  For a long time, I used to dread going to physical therapy. It was painful and often counterproductive, and no one, as I described in my previous column, seemed to understand how to best handle my Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). But…

Abnormally high sensitivity of a type of sensory nerve fibers is behind the heightened pain responses to harmless light touch that were observed in a mouse model of classical-like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (clEDS), a study shows. This abnormal pain sensation, called mechanical allodynia, is a main symptom of neuropathic pain…