Barn dancing, paris and a marriage: One week in hypermobile Hell.

I am lucky enough to sometimes forget I have hypermobility and EDS. That is only sometimes though. Other times it jumps out from whichever rock it has been hiding under and repeatedly slaps me in the face and storms around at night making sure I know it’s there and it means business. One week in the life of someone lacking collagen who’s joints are very grumpy and impossible to please can be a hellish week indeed.

You still have to go to work (if you can) and do everyday things like showering and eating and sleeping, but it is extremely difficult when these things HURT SO MUCH.

I recently had one week full of hypermobile nightmares. The worst I have had in a very long time. To make things more exciting though, the week did involve a wedding, a barn dance and Paris. Sublaxation is not fun. On a scale of one-fun it wouldn’t even make one. I haven’t had an awful lot of experience of subluxation apart from one time when I was walking home and my hip decided to put an end to the walking part. “Hello can you pick me up. I can’t move.”

Last week however, while at a wedding, wearing VERY sensible shoes might I add, my hip started to throb.  I tried to walk it off at first as sometimes unexplained random hip pain does occur, but to no avail. Fortunately the food, wine and speech section soon kicked in which meant excessive sitting and excessive wine. I’m not sure if the excessive wine was an advantage or not, but my hips soon became much less of a focus.

It’s not every day a wedding includes a barn dance, but on this occasion it did. I think barn dancing was the final straw. That is definitely not something I ever imaged playing a factor in my joint woes but hey, it’s actually quite fun (when you have had 1 or 15 drinks) and clearly good exercise, as my hip can attest to.

So my hip sublaxed, I had to limp around a wedding, then get a four hour train home the next day in the company of a hangover and a killer back ache and on Monday I was due to do a retinal screening clinic and stand for the best part of nine hours. I also live in a house with LOTS of stairs, so becoming thirsty or needing food pretty much turned into the Hunger Games. Perfect! Obviously the next day didn’t happen and I had to retreat to my parents to lay in a burning hot bath and watch tv with my dog via a painful physio session and lots of limping. Every cloud.

Of course, because hypermobility waits for no one, this all coincided with me popping across to Paris with a friend for a quick break. Paris involves A LOT of walking. A lot of museums. A lot of steps. My hip behaved for most of it. I only had to limp and complain a couple of times a day, but then after day one my shoulder began to ache and click and crack. I mean why not, it’s not like I was trying to sight see or anything. I clearly rewarded myself for putting up with life with ALL OF THE PASTRY.  But it was still a massive pain, in every sense of the word.

 

I am now in urgent need of loads of physio, my hip is cracking constantly and my shoulder is doing a routine where it kicks in with full on pain every hour or so. Throw starting a new job into the mix and developing massive brain fog, and you pretty much have it all. I definitely forgot just how bad it can be sometimes, and it makes me wonder exactly how people who suffer in this way constantly can face the day. But they do, as I seen on facebook groups and on forums and through chatting to people on Twitter.

Personally, I think someone somewhere needs to start handing out ‘congratulations you live with HMS/EDS’ certificates along with wine and brownies. And maybe puppies?

The above is basically just because this is PRETTY.