Hypermobility

Medical illustration of a standing figure showing the heart, brain, and blood vessels, with shaded lower legs suggesting blood pooling associated with POTS.

Missing the POTS Cutoff Shouldn’t Mean Missing Out on Care

You feel lightheaded when you stand, have brain fog, palpitations, exercise intolerance, fatigue, and headaches. If your general practitioner is knowledgeable (and that’s a big “if”) they give you a referral to a specialist who runs appropriate testing to see if you have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Your tilt table test may suggest too […]

Four colorful walking canes decorated with charms lean together in a corner, used as mobility aids for someone with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS).

What Helped You After an EDS Diagnosis?

Being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can feel like a major feat to some. Maybe you’ve been advocating for a diagnosis for a while, or maybe this was a shock to you. In both scenarios, sometimes you get to the other side of the diagnostic process and realize it doesn’t just stop there. Now is the […]

Minimalist illustration of a male and female figure shown back-to-back, with highlighted joints and overlapping circles representing shared and differing features of hEDS and HSD.

Does EDS Affect Men Differently? What a New Study Tells Us About Sex Differences in hEDS and HSD

Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), and the closely related hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD), are commonly thought of as conditions that primarily affect women. Walk into any EDS support group, online community, or clinic waiting room, and the overwhelming majority of people there will be female. But does that mean men are truly less affected, or does […]

Paper-cut side profile of a blue human head with a rainbow infinity symbol over the brain and pink squiggles around it.

Getting Tested for Autism as an Adult: What I Learned Going Through It

If you’ve landed here, maybe you have been quietly researching traits of autism, looking up screening questionnaires, and wondering if you could be part of the recently reported 39% of autistic patients that have co-occurring Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD). Before I ever sat across from an evaluator, I spent months reading, […]

Minimalist illustration of a laptop displaying an online webinar, with a speaker, microphone, chat bubble, and three participant icons.

CPP Webinars Are Back! And Why We Need Them More Than Ever

Have you ever clicked on the webinar section of our Chronic Pain Partners website and looked through the archives of the presentations featured? In 2013, our founder, John Ferman, started this highly popular educational series with a clear mission to provide free access to emerging research interpreted by experienced physicians. Wow, did he succeed! Looking […]

Amy Wang-Hiller seated in a wheelchair, holding a violin and bow, wearing a black dress and smiling at the camera.

An Interview with Amy Wang-Hiller: Music, Disability, and Advocacy

This month, we spoke with Amy Wang-Hiller, a violinist living with quadriplegia, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), and related complex neuro-connective tissue conditions. As a violin instructor, Amy works with intermediate and advanced musicians navigating changes that affect performance, such as complex neurological disorders. She is also a disability advocate, founder of the InclusiVibe Foundation, and […]

"Graphic for Disability Pride Month featuring the Disability Pride flag with diagonal red, yellow, white, blue, and green stripes on a dark gray background, overlaid with a black accessibility wheelchair symbol in the center."

Disability Pride Month: The World Works Better With Us

  Every July, the disability community marks Disability Pride Month: an annual celebration tied to the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990. The ADA was a landmark civil rights law that prohibited discrimination against disabled people in employment, public accommodations, transportation, and government services. It was the result of […]

Tayler sits on white stairs wearing a green sleeveless top and ripped jeans, with an ostomy pouch visible at her waist. Small white flowers are tucked into the waistband of her jeans around the ostomy pouch. She looks toward the camera with a calm, confident expression, portraying everyday life with an ostomy.

My Ostomy Saved My Life

Celebrating My Two-Year Stoma-Versary I used to feel like I couldn’t say, “my ostomy bag saved my life,” because I didn’t get my ostomy bag for the same reasons a lot of people do. Some of the most common reasons people need ostomies are for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), acute infections like diverticulitis, or colon […]