1. Your morning stretch. There are few greater things in life than waking up and stretching out in bed. However, the joy is slightly hampered when you feel your shoulders moving around in ways they definitely shouldn't be and hear about 35 cracks and clicks that could be coming from anywhere. Hips, toes, knees, they’re all at it. Hypermobile joints can definitely give Rice Crispies a run for their money in the snap, crackle and pop stakes over breakfast.
2. Hair washing. I have long hair and whenever I reach up to the back of my head to go to work with some shampoo the clicking in my arms and shoulders goes wild. I also start to ache after about 30 seconds of head massaging. The one good thing about this situation is standing under the hot shower and letting it massage your joints a bit (until it goes arctic without warning, which mines really enjoys doing). The downside is once you have recovered, you have conditioner to contend with. Being clean and tangle free is hard.
3. Cooking. This must apply to lots more people than just me. Chopping, peeling, mixing, grating and rolling cause my already grumpy shoulders to go into full strop-mode. They hate it. I hate it. We all hate it. Last week making fairy cake mixture turned into something not dissimilar to a physio appointment. My shoulders came in and out and cracked and clicked and that was only mixing butter and sugar. Dinner time hypermobility flare ups are not ideal.
4. Photos. My sister’s birthday at the weekend provided a wide selection of drunken and ridiculous photos and in most of them my arms look a bit like they have been taken off and sewed back on the wrong way round. Holiday photos where everyone is half naked and looking really pleased on a beach are also often joint shots of shame. It’s a bit like the daily mail side bar of cellulite and things that could be spots but probably aren’t, but for hypermobile people.
5. Any kind of travel. My morning journey to work in central London involves being squashed into a tube carriage with bits of coat and rucksack in my face. It also often involves holding onto the bars above my head, which my wrists and shoulders love (they don’t) and is always followed by pain. Also the obscene amount of escalators that you have to traipse up and down do absolutely nothing to please hips. Planes are also quite an ordeal. Sitting in small seats with no leg room usually ends in limping off of the plane and being stiff for a few days. Dragging suitcases gets harder every time, but it’s quite nice also being able to off load your luggage on a lovely friend while you float around departures with your YAY holiday face on.
I’m getting ready to go around southern Thailand in 7 weeks. With a backpack. A large backpack. We shall see.
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