How Chiropractic Care Can Help People With Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS)
If you have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), you may know firsthand how frustrating it can be to deal with chronic pain, joint instability, muscle tightness, and recurring injuries.
You may feel like your body is constantly fighting against you. One day your neck hurts, the next your hips feel unstable, and seemingly simple activities can leave you feeling sore or exhausted.
At Tennessee Back Pain Center, we believe that people with EDS deserve an individualized approach to musculoskeletal care. While there is currently no cure for EDS, the right combination of movement, strengthening, education, and symptom management may help improve your quality of life.
Let's discuss what EDS is and how we may be able to help.
What Is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS)?
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a group of inherited connective tissue disorders that affect the body's ability to produce and maintain healthy connective tissue.
Depending on the type of EDS, individuals may experience:
Joint hypermobility (joints that move beyond their normal range of motion)
Frequent joint sprains, subluxations, or dislocations
Chronic muscle and joint pain
Muscle tightness and spasms
Joint instability
Fatigue
Poor proprioception (difficulty sensing where your body is in space)
Increased bruising or skin fragility
Because connective tissue is involved in so many structures throughout the body, EDS can affect much more than just your joints.
Why Does EDS Cause So Much Musculoskeletal Pain?
One of the biggest challenges with EDS is joint hypermobility.
When ligaments and other connective tissues provide less support than they normally would, the muscles surrounding those joints often have to work harder to provide stability.
Think of your muscles as an additional support system for your joints.
When that support system isn't functioning properly, several things can happen:
1. Increased muscle tension - Muscles may constantly work overtime trying to stabilize joints that lack adequate passive support. This can contribute to muscle tightness, trigger points, spasms, and chronic discomfort.
2. Joint instability - When joints move excessively, they may become more susceptible to irritation, sprains, subluxations, and dislocations.
3. Poor movement control - Proprioception is your body's ability to recognize where your joints are positioned without having to look at them. Some individuals with EDS experience impaired proprioception, making it more difficult to control movement and maintain joint stability.
4. Chronic pain - Repeated joint irritation, muscle overactivity, and injuries can contribute to persistent pain. Over time, this can make exercise and everyday activities increasingly difficult.
Understanding these factors is important because treating someone with EDS requires a different approach than treating someone with typical mechanical back or neck pain.
How Can Tennessee Back Pain Center Help?
At Tennessee Back Pain Center, we take an individualized approach to musculoskeletal care.
We don't believe everyone needs the same adjustment, exercise, or treatment plan. This is especially important for individuals with EDS.
Our goal is to help address the muscular and movement-related components of your discomfort while prioritizing joint stability and safety.
Here are some of the ways we may be able to help:
We believe strengthening is one of the most important components of managing joint hypermobility.
Rather than focusing on increasing flexibility, our approach emphasizes improving muscular strength, coordination, and joint control.
We start with exercises appropriate for your current abilities and gradually progress as your body tolerates them.
The goal isn't to push through pain or exhaust your muscles. It's to build a stronger support system around your joints.
When muscles are constantly working to stabilize hypermobile joints, they can become overworked and painful.
Soft tissue techniques (trigger point therapy, scraping, cupping, etc). may help address muscular discomfort and improve tolerance to movement.
Learning how to move, exercise, and manage your symptoms outsideGe the clinic is an important part of long-term care.
We want to help you understand:
How to exercise without constantly irritating your joints
Why excessive stretching may not be beneficial
How to recognize when you are pushing too hard
How to gradually increase activity
How to modify movements that aggravate your symptoms
Small changes in how you move throughout the day can make a meaningful difference in managing musculoskeletal discomfort.
People with EDS have unique connective tissue considerations, and traditional chiropractic adjustments are not appropriate for everyone.
The Ehlers-Danlos Society specifically advises against spinal and neck adjustments involving forceful manipulation because of potential complications, particularly in individuals with joint or vascular instability.
We do not believe that someone with EDS should automatically receive the same high-velocity adjustments used for other patients. In many cases, our focus may be on gentle soft tissue techniques, appropriate rehabilitation exercises, and movement education rather than spinal manipulation.
While chiropractic care cannot cure EDS or correct the underlying connective tissue disorder, individualized musculoskeletal care may help address some of the pain, muscle dysfunction, and movement limitations that accompany it.
If you have EDS and are struggling with chronic back pain, neck pain, muscle tension, or joint-related discomfort, we would love to learn more about your situation and discuss whether our approach is appropriate for you.
Contact Tennessee Back Pain Center in Murfreesboro, TN, to learn more about how we can help!
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