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The Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) are a group of 13 connective tissue disorders which affect up to 1 in 5,000 people around the world. The syndromes present themselves with many symptoms including chronic pain, hyper-mobility of the joints, skin hyper-extensibility (over stretchy skin), tissue fragility and even organ fragility or rupture such as pneumothorax (lung collapse) and heart valve insufficiency.

This is something particularly close to my heart as my wife Jessie has type 3 EDS, otherwise known as Hypermobile EDS (hEDS). Over the course of her life and even before diagnosis at age 16 she has had to deal with chronic pain, often springing up out of nowhere with no other explanation or obvious injury, hyper mobile joints and repeated herniated spinal discs (slipped discs). In May 2019, 2 months before our wedding day she slipped her disc and could not stand up for four days. Over the course of the following 6 months by following strict instruction from a brilliant osteopath Jessie rehabilitated her back and made a fantastic recovery and thankfully today she can say that generally speaking, through careful exercise, strengthening of her core and vigilance in terms of her bodily movement and posture she lives day to day relatively pain free. However, the fact is that she will always be at a greater risk of injuries such as these and others for the rest of her life and so many people around the world face similar challenges and some far more extreme. For more information about EDS please visit: https://www.ehlers-danlos.org/what-is-eds/information-on-eds/types-of-eds/

Ehlers-Danlos Support UK are a fantastic charity who work to develop greater awareness of EDS, fund the best quality EDS research worldwide and improve clinical care options for all people with EDS.

Jessie and I, and Ehlers-Danlos Support UK are so grateful for any donation that can go towards understanding and fighting this illness and thank you for taking time to read and to give your money.

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Many thanks

Alex