Collagen- more important than you think

Before I found out I had hypermobility syndrome and began a never ending biology lesson, I thought collagen was just a cosmetic thing. I knew about ‘collagen fillers’ that you get injected into your face to make lips plumper and wrinkles less prominent. I didn’t have any idea just how important it was in your body or how much my lack of it would impact my life.

When I was newly diagnosed and became aware of the syndrome I started seeing the word collagen everywhere. Probably because I was paying more attention to the word, but also because actually, it’s a big part of being a human. I remember buying a lipstick about three years ago that said it was like ‘magical cherry colored collagen’ and made your lips look like you may be distantly related to Kim Kardashian. This then made me think that my joints must be all shriveled and fragile looking and definitely not anything like Kim K.

Collagen is actually the most abundant protein in humans and makes up 30% of the protein content of the body. It can be found everywhere, even in your eyes. It is in your gut, bones, blood vessels, skin, ligaments and tendons; quite the popular protein. It’s very important for strengthening those parts of the body and extremely important to skin. Skin gets its elasticity from collagen and when production starts to slow with age, we start to get wrinkles. I guess this the stage where you start buying ‘magical collagen’ products and letting a man in a lab coat inject some into your face and tell you look fabulous.

I’ve often read that collagen is the super glue of the body, which makes sense to hypermobility sufferers, as they often feel like their joints are falling apart because they are lacking in it. The lack of collagen means a distinct lack of strength in joints, meaning the muscles work harder to keep us going.

Millions of people buy into ways of making collagen produce more rapidly when they get older, meaning they can retain a more youthful look. Let’s face it, it would be ideal if we could just inject some extra collagen into joints or buy a nice collagen rich moisturiser and feel all the pains and aches fade away. Since this sadly isn’t an option, it is vital for hypermobility sufferers to strengthen muscles as much as possible. The stronger they are, the easier they will find it to do the extra work. Imagine coming home after a long day and then immediately having to start hours of extra work with no rest or food. This is what it’s like for muscles. Obviously hypermobility stops some people from having the ability to exercise at all, so small, tiny baby steps to start with are just as important, even if it feels like what you are doing is pointless. Trying is half the battle.

My first ever physio, who was brilliant but went on her honeymoon to Hawaii, never returned and is 

probably currently drinking from a coconut, told me that with hypermobility, what you lack in collagen, you must gain in strength. A nice little piece of advice. Someone should make a cushion with the words sewn on or something.