Unlike some hypermobile kids, I didn’t receive a diagnosis as a kid. Maybe I should’ve. I mean, by the age of five, I’d already had hernia surgery. My arms were long. I’d needed braces (yes, this is actually a sign). I’d torn my rotator cuff when I was in high school from dancing. I had “growing pains” as a child, where I stayed up all night in agonizing, full-body pain.

Lifelong constipation. Joints that moved weird. Anxiety. On-and-off wrist pain. Struggling to put on muscle mass. Elbows that could never support bicep curls past 8 pounds, no matter what I did. Bicep tendonitis. A doctor telling me to never do pull-ups ever again because my shoulders literally subluxate when I do. Fibromyalgia. Sprains. Frozen shoulders. Fatigue. Light-headed when I stand up too fast.

On and on and fucking on.

Not a single doctor put it all together. Not a single damn one. Even the doctor who told me my shoulders are more loose than others didn’t think, “Oh, maybe she’s hypermobile.”

What Changed

The book Fourth Wing. No, I’m not kidding. While I wouldn’t consider Fourth Wing to be the pinnacle of storytelling, the author made the main character, Violet, a version of hypermobile. She hurt herself a lot and had weaker joints—two main staple experiences.

A lifelong reader of fantasy, I remember thinking, “Hey, this is how my body would be like if I tried hand-to-hand or ride a dragon!”

Then, somehow, I ended up on the side of TikTok, as one does, where hypermobility videos started showing up. I began to chase down the info, spiraling deeper down the rabbit hole.

It all started coming together, especially as I began trying to find solutions to my blossoming list of physical ailments, like 24/7 hip pain and a big toe that started to make it hard to walk all the time.

As a neurodivergent person, this became a huge hyperfixation, trying to find ways to direct my doctors in the direction of finding a diagnosis to each issue. It took a lot of advocacy, and admittedly, I’ve yet to get an official diagnosis for hEDS or something similar. No doctor denies I’m hypermobile, but the co-morbidity of it all makes it easy for them to dismiss these “phenomenons” as one-off issues. Also note, I have the VA as my medical care provider—they aren’t known for their high-end care.

Why I decided To Specialize in Yoga For Hypermobile Folx

Originally, I wanted to do trauma-informed yoga with mental health specialists. I still want to do this, but while I worked through my certification journey, I was working through non-stop physical pain. Despite stretching every day, I began to feel worse and worse.

I’d already started to realize I was hypermobile and had scaled back significantly in my physical activity. I’ve gone from a vibrantly active individual to taking it very easy. I’m still trying to find my activity balance—I’m not there yet.

I digress. Anyway, I decided to find a Kindle Unlimited book about hypermobility. It was a fantastic book and from there, I began chasing information. It’s where my obsession about the Serratus Anterior muscle came from. Then I found a book called Yoga For Bendy people and it was game over. I began to realize that my lifelong issues were preventable, but the lack of information out there is a big part of why I will now feel pain in parts of my body forever.

I don’t want anyone else to experience this, if they don’t have to. Hypermobile people are in danger of chronic lifelong pain, and they have no idea.

Where Do I Go From Here

I’m of the belief that you should always be learning. My journey to expertise will never stop and I’m okay with that. I want to help everyone possible, which means I not only have to consume as much info as possible, but learn how to communicate to as many people as possible.

Thank you for reading about my journey, if you’ve made it this far. I hope you find value in my blog and resources!