The Story Behind the Plates

For years, I lived in a body that didn’t make sense. I had a wildly bendy frame, but that flexibility came with a terrifying amount of instability and pain. Long before I found answers, I was constantly twisting my ankles on a dime, falling down, and skinning my knees over the slightest uneven ground. I lived with unexplainable heart-racing episodes and sudden fainting spells. On my worst days, the chronic pain was so suffocating it felt like I had been beaten by a bat, leaving me with what felt like a body full of broken bones.

Yet, when I sought help, I ran into a brick wall of medical dismissal. I remember sitting in a rheumatologist's office, being told that while my lab tests showed incredibly high levels of inflammation, there was absolutely "no medical reason" for it. Instead of looking deeper, the doctor suggested that I simply needed to see a therapist to better control my anxiety. It was devastating. Because my symptoms were so widespread and bizarre, it was easier for providers to label me a hypochondriac and brush me off than to actually connect the dots.

Everything changed because of a stroke of absolute luck. I took a job in a medical office working alongside a provider who happened to treat patients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. One day, after seeing what I was dealing with firsthand, he looked at me and gently suggested, "You need to get checked for EDS."

That single conversation set off a chain reaction. Finally, after a lifetime of questioning my own reality, I received my official EDS diagnosis in August 2026. While it was a relief to finally have a name for my hypermobility and pain, the diagnosis brought along its infamous roommates. I already had a strong suspicion about POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome)—those terrifying heart rate spikes and fainting spells finally made sense—but the MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome) diagnosis took me completely by surprise.