When I was two, my left elbow dislocated twice when my parents pulled me up from the floor. They thought nothing of it, as these things happen. As I got older, I injured myself frequently, often because I ran into things and fell down the stairs if I didn’t look down. My extreme clumsiness became a family joke. As a teen, I had incredibly painful “growing pains,” but never became tall. I eventually began experiencing debilitating fatigue and extreme allergic reactions.
However, it wasn’t until I was 24 that things changed drastically. I was in terrible pain all the time, my fingers would dislocate, my shoulders always slid out of sockets, my kneecaps shifted back and forth, and my hip would dislocate so dramatically that I would fall over. I went to five different physical therapists and three doctors before someone I worked with heard me tell a friend my frustrations, and she told me to get tested for hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
Two months later I was diagnosed. I had to quit my job, and I still deal with daily dislocations, but I will be forever grateful to have received a diagnosis and ended the two-decade-long search for answers.
