Why everyone with SIJD should know about hypermobility

Hey everyone,

Today, I wanted to tell you about the huge overlap I see between SI joint dysfunction and genetic hypermobility conditions.

When you’re genetically hypermobile, it means the way your body codes for ligaments and other connective tissues means they come out “stretchier” than the average person’s.

SI joint dysfunction is generally caused by an injury, or sprain, to the ligaments that are meant to hold the joint together.

Because hypermobile people are more prone to injuries involving the ligaments and connective tissue, we are at increased risk for developing SIJD.

Now that I’ve been running this site and offering coaching, I’ve come to see just how common it is for my clients to turn out to be hypermobile.

Anecdotally, I would say that around 50% of the people I talk to end up having signs of hypermobility. (We definitely need more studies on these topics!).

However, people don’t always know they’re hypermobile, or what it means, which is what I wanted to talk to you about in this post.

How to know if you’re hypermobile

For most of my life, I had no idea that I was hypermobile. I actually had no symptoms from it until my first few sports injuries, running cross-country and track in high school.

Still, it took another 15 years to get a true diagnosis and recognition, once I found the right doctors. I was in my 30’s by the time I found out. Sadly, that’s the reality for many people, because this condition is so under-recognized. Sometimes hypermobile people might not even perceive of themselves as being “flexible,” because for some of us, our bodies compensate by keeping our muscles right.

Now, I recognize many of these same experiences in the stories of those of you who come to me for help with SI joint dysfunction.  Many of our stories have shared themes:

• Pain that medical professionals don’t understand.

• Being told you’re too “sensitive.”

• Having a doctor or PT question your mental health, when you’ve gone in with a physical complaint.  

• Being told that it’s “not typical” for your SI joints to go out of alignment as frequently as you say they do, and that they don’t know how to help you any further.  

Many of us have been  discharged from PT- not because we were better, but because the practitioner said we must have some “other” kind of problem that PT couldn’t treat.  

And- sadly- another big one is the family members who don’t understand.

I had all of these experiences, over the course of years.  On my journey looking for help with SI issues, it would cause me to slow down.  Every time someone would say one of these things, I’d feel as though I would never find help.  Worse, their treatment would often hurt and make things worse, so I’d take a break from searching for a few months. 

Many of you ask me how long it took to get better. The truth is it took five years, but that’s not because it takes five years to rehab your SI joints.

Five years is how long it took me to finally find the answers I needed.  If I’d known everything that I know now then, it would have taken 4-6 months!  

Now, I know that many of these professionals were completely unaware of genetic hypermobility conditions.  The people who said they didn’t understand my pain, or why I kept going out of alignment so much more easily than their other patients?

That was because they didn’t understand hypermobility, or how it is a risk factor for SIJD.

The sad reality is many practitioners will end up blaming the patient, on some level, if their symptoms don’t make sense.  

If there’s anything I could tell my past self, it’s that when people say this, there’s something they’re missing, something they haven’t picked up on.  You are not the problem.

If you’re experiencing this too, you can’t let it get to you.  Don’t let it stop you from looking for answers.   

That’s why I believe it’s truly important for everyone with SI joint dysfunction to investigate the possibility that you could be genetically hypermobile.

There are medical professionals out there who understand it. It’s similar to SI joint dysfunction, in the sense that it isn’t necessarily included as a topic in medical, PT school, or other professional training programs.

Instead, it’s often those who take an interest in the topic on a personal level, and choose to take more classes on it, who really develop expertise.  Sometimes,  it will be the person themselves or a family member who’s hypermobile.

Other times, they might have had a couple of hypermobile patients, and decided to figure out exactly what was missing, so that they could help them.

Knowing you’re hypermobile has so many implications for treatment.

First of all, even just knowing that it’s part of your issue will help you to reframe the situation and take you out of the mindset of thinking it’s “impossible” to find answers. You aren’t a freak, you have a genetic trait that affects up to 20% of the population, and we need to advocate for more understanding!

Second, the more you understand about hypermobility, the more the things going on in your body will make sense to you.

For example, when you’re hypermobile, it’s extremely important that you avoid putting a lot of pressure or force on the ligaments.

This is true for everyone with SIJD, but it’s even more important for the hypermobile peeps. Our ligaments simply cannot bounce back from having more stress put on them when they’re already inflamed – it’s why pushing through the pain doesn’t work.

There are a lot of other tips and tricks for hypermobility which I’ll be sharing in upcoming posts!

Once I personally learned that I was hypermobile, it’s like doors opened up for me.  I started to know to look for practitioners with the right knowledge, and ask the right questions, and I started understanding things about my body that suddenly all made sense. 

More on the things I learned, coming up!