Hypermobility & Chronic Pain: What does it actually feel like?
Jo Southall is an Occupational Therapy Student in the UK with her own complex health issues, including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility. She is due to graduate from her occupational therapy degree in August 2016 and OT's worldwide will gladly welcome her to the profession! It's going to be wonderful having another insightful therapist who can help educate people about hypermobility, raise awareness and help people manage life with their hypermobility.
Jo has an amazing website filled with a wide variety of great posts that you might like to take time exploring. In this post, she shares a unique perspective on chronic pain, which she has generously allowed us to share with the Hypermobility Connect Community. She describes well what I myself (Michelle Louise) have experienced: underlying chronic pain with an ever-changing layer of acute pain topping it off.
In her introduction she says "Most newly qualified healthcare professionals do not have a modern understanding of pain. I reviewed 9 articles for my dissertation, one common theme was the negative patient experience. Patients not feeling validated, not feeling like their doctors understood or being passed from pillar to post with no answers and very little understanding. If you’re a pain patient you’re probably nodding your head right now. If you’re a healthcare provider you might be reading this and thinking things have changed. You’re wrong."
You can read her blog post "Chronic Pain: What does it actually feel like?" here
Thanks so much Jo for allowing us to share!