General Chat

My son has really loose over flexible muscles and has lots of pain. His wrists bend right back as do his elbows and his shoulders some times pop out. Just wondered if anyone else has this condition?

He is 9 and has always been a bit weak, clumsy. Is being investigated and he spend a few night last week in hospital, he kept getting paralysis in his limbs. Tests came back fine, waiting on the others. The physio at the hospital says he has Hypermobility syndrome and needs gentle excercise to strengthen the muscles.
It is just strange as their is no family history .

Yes hopefully. They will come in handy if he wants to a swimmer and in certain other sports I have been told. Shame he hates sports! lol

my youngest son has it.".hyper agile joints"

my other children and one grandson have it too but not as bad as Stephen

when he swims he looks as though his arms are broken , his elbows bend the wrong way.his knee joints slip out and he falls to the ground sometimes. only help is that he has physio when its bad and the muscles surrounding the affected joints neeed to be excercised to help them support the joint.

Does he suffer alot with pain and does he have much time off school with it? Hope you don't mind me asking.

Are you talking about Ehlers Danlos Syndrome?

One of the symptoms of that is hyper-flexibility, along with easy bruising, translucent skin, slow healing and paper-thin scarring which can stretch, stretchy skin and a host of other symptoms. Not all the symptoms are present, so there are at least 12 types of EDS, depending on the range of symptoms present.

Both my children have it, and can bend their fingers in a way that I can't, their feet are floppy and turn inwards when relaxed, and they often dislocate joints because of the hyper-flexibility.

It's heriditary and caused by having less collagen in the body. Many of the contortionists you see, who can tie themselves in knots, probably have EDS.

well he is 20 now, and yes it is painful after an episode he has some anti inflammatories off the doctor to take when his knees swell. My daughter who is 35 has it but not in her knees , they seem to have inherited it from me, i could always bend my thumbs back to my wrist and of course now i have one thumb that is bionic because the joint just wore away. i think the best treatment is excercise to protect the joints from damage and one off doing exercise is no good it has be kept up everyday.
forgot to say, he had special inserts in his shoes to stop his ankles slipping out of joint also.

One of my sons has this hes 16 now and took up running which seems to help tighten the joint muscles ....been a brilliant use of his time and his body he now runs at county level!!!


and has just started to high jump

Thanks Stella, Teresa and Kempinasunhat. I just feel a bit lost with it being only just diagnosed, losing movement in his limbs but he can still feel touch and the pain he is in. He can be running about fine like this morning, this afternoon he is on the couch with muscle pain and not in full control of his legs.
Totally worried and lost

A site which may be of use to you.

http://www.hypermobility.org/painandhms.php

Most people must remember the 'double jointed' children they went to school with. I remember causing quite a stir in the playground, as I shook hands with myself behind my back or 'crab walked'.

I really do sympathise with him, it is my ligaments that are affected ... I have spent years on different 'cocktails' of drugs ... hopefuly they will find a combination that suits him.

yes this is normal and my son did this we ignored it !!!! woops but he kept saying his back hurt and that what it was ......


keep going hun little by little he will get stronger .....but go slowly

Thanks Carol Will look at the site.

I have hyper mobility syndrome, and please dont let him do party tricks of bending joints this way and the other as he will suffer a lot later on in life.

My thumbs i can get down on my forearms and used to get my legs up over my back and past ears. Got double jointed thumbs as well and used to be very bendy.
Am paying now as it is contributing to my pain from the Fibro.
Carol I used to crab walk as well and we used to have a thing where we did handstand against wall and then the next would do one against you and so on so you had a line coming out of wall, I was always the first against wall as my legs would go wider than anyone elses so we could get more people in a line.

Mine wasnt diagnosed til 2006 by my Rheumatologist if i had known earlier i could of saved a lot of pain through not bedning into weird shapes.

Hope he his pain gets better

d x