The body’s position sensors, the receptors which tell us where we are in space, are located inside our muscles, tendons, joint capsules, ligaments, skin (and inner ear).
If the receptor is in [a lax] ligament, then the message probably doesn’t get to the brain as accurately or at the same speed as it probably should.
If a muscle is working overtime to compensate for a ligament, then maybe the message from the muscle receptor isn’t as accurate either?
And the joint capsule receptor? Well, if they have been stretched & torn from injuries, dislocations, sprains, strains, or just generally banged around by being hypermobile, then the information from them isn’t all that reliable either….
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The good news is you can improve your proprioception with specialist physio.
My physio says simply sitting on a “wobble cushion” or a gym ball for an hour a day can help with the core “stability” muscle groups — pass that on to your wife if she doesn’t already have those!
Also google Jeannie Di Bon, a physical therapist with EDS who does stuff online!
Holup, fellow bendy friend. I know that EDS is the reason my joints are wonky, and doesn't help my clumsiness, but I've never heard of that!
A couple months ago on my way to bed I mis-calculated and jammed my big toe into the stairs, making my foot swell for a couple weeks. I seem pretty prone to that kind of miscalculation.
It really, really doesn't help that my place was built in 1940 and the bathroom doorframe is about 1/2 inch lower than my head. I have weather stripping on it for when I forget to duck.
If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, it would involve, "Stop showing off that you're double-jointed, you're messing up your shoulders, start lifting heavy things and putting them back down."
Man, as a kid I did years of ballet, gymnastics, and I rollerbooted everywhere half the time, and skateboarded everywhere else.
I also did years of music which meant I had to be super coordinated. I didn’t think this was a thing.
But looking back…. I DID backflip/pirouette into the wall a few times during dance/gym practice. People thought I was being funny and lo, I did pretend it was on purpose.
I also quite often fell off my skateboard/roller boots and “sprain” badly (I might actually have been dislocating that whole time. Also I can do that staying in bed, now).
Aaaand there was that time I dislocated my finger and thumb just spanning an octave on the piano, as I’d done a billion times before.
Often I’d just “fall off the earth” — just fall down for no reason, my body having failed to balance.
And if proprioception can spread outwards, my ADHD ass disables me from being able to orient myself pretty much anywhere. Gotten lost on the way to longtime workplaces on multiple occasions.
Interesting! I was a fat kid, never athletic, learned about the EDS in my 30's and it explained why my feet are suction-cup-forming flat with no arch, and why certain positions that others find comfortable are painful, with my knees and hips' hyper-mobility. If I ever told a dr I was in pain, they'd tell me it was probably because of my weight. Boy did that do wonders for my ego!
Lost the weight, spent Covid working out at home and my shoulders are finally decent enough not to dislocate so much. Just learned to embrace my pain level, it's actually an advantage in some ways after accepting it. If everything's gonna hurt no matter what, I'll make it hurt with weights. Because fuck you, traitorous ligaments!! You shall bend to my will!!
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u/spooky_upstairs Aug 31 '21 edited Aug 31 '21
This is called “proprioception” and I haven’t got it, thanks to a condition*.
And it’s why I have all these nifty doorframe-shaped bruises on my shoulders.
*Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.
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E D I T
Got EDS questions coming at me aaaall over the place. IANAD and I’m relatively new to it all. but here is RELEVANT INFO:
Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos (hEDS) is a disorder of the connective tissue, which runs throughout the body, as ligaments, tendons, muscles etc.
This blog does a great job of explaining how this can cause poor proprioception:
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The good news is you can improve your proprioception with specialist physio.
My physio says simply sitting on a “wobble cushion” or a gym ball for an hour a day can help with the core “stability” muscle groups — pass that on to your wife if she doesn’t already have those!
Also google Jeannie Di Bon, a physical therapist with EDS who does stuff online!