What it is
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a group of connective-tissue conditions, the most common being hypermobile EDS, that affect how your collagen holds your body together. The hallmark is joints that move beyond the normal range, but the day-to-day reality is bigger than flexibility: frequent sprains and subluxations, joints that feel loose or “give out,” muscles that ache from constantly stabilizing, fatigue, and pain that moves around the body.
Plenty of people are hypermobile without having EDS. Either way, the physical therapy principles are similar: build the strength and control that your ligaments aren’t providing on their own.
What it feels like
- Joints that slip, click, partially dislocate (sublux), or “go out” and come back
- A body that fatigues quickly because muscles are doing the ligaments’ stabilizing job
- Pain that migrates: this week the shoulder, next week the hip or knee
- Bruising easily, soft or stretchy skin, slow-healing injuries
- A history of being called “double-jointed,” “flexible,” or “clumsy”
- Flares after activity that felt fine in the moment but cost you for days
Why it needs a careful approach
The instinct with a hypermobile body is often to stretch. Usually that’s the opposite of what helps. The joints already have too much range; what they lack is control and strength through that range. Pushing into more flexibility tends to make things less stable, not more.
The other trap is doing too much too soon. Hypermobile tissue is slower to adapt and quicker to flare, so progress that’s perfectly reasonable for someone else can set you back. The work has to be paced to your tissue, not a generic timeline.
How we treat it
A typical plan focuses on:
- Joint control and stability training. Strengthening the muscles around each affected joint so they can do the stabilizing your ligaments don’t, through ranges you actually use.
- Proprioception work. Retraining your body’s sense of where its joints are in space, so you stop drifting into the end-ranges that provoke subluxations.
- Graded, conservative loading. Building strength in small, deliberate steps, with close attention to how you respond between sessions. We’d rather progress slowly than trigger a multi-day flare.
- Pacing and energy strategy. Practical guidance on activity, rest, and load so you can do more of what you want without paying for it later.
- A program you own. Hypermobility is managed over the long term, not cured in a few visits. The goal is a routine you can run yourself, with us as a resource when things flare or change.
When to seek us out
If you’ve been told you’re hypermobile or have EDS and exercise keeps backfiring, a clinician who understands how to load this kind of tissue can change the whole picture. We move at the pace your body sets and build stability that lasts.
Seek immediate medical care for any of the red-flag symptoms above. Vascular symptoms, a dislocation that won’t reduce, or new neurological changes need urgent medical attention, not PT.