Living with JHS

So before I get down into what Joint Hypermobility Syndrome actually is, I’ll start with a little bit about myself.

Well I’m 19 years old, soon to be 20 (oh my! No longer a teenager anymore) and I left my home county of Northumberland to become a second-year student, studying accounting & finance, at York St John university… again pretty scary because at this point in time I only have 7 weeks left of university contact time this year and, therefore, second-year and then I become a third, and final, year student (can I go back to first year?!).

I was medically diagnosed with JHS back in February 2013, but I have been suffering for a lot longer than that. I will explain at a later date but, in short, it took a lot of time, effort, energy and pushing to get to a diagnosis, and therefore where I am today.

So, the purpose of my blog?The purpose of my blog is not to be informative, in terms of medical diagnosis and expectations, but rather about my life and how I live day-to-day with my condition, in the hope that it can help you or someone you care about. I’m not normally someone who opens up about my condition, but having been through what I have, I want to try and ensure that someone else has someone there who’s been through it as well. Especially as there’s not many blogs/personal journeys for people suffering from any type of Hypermobility Syndrome (trust me, I searched and searched! & there’s a lot more available now than there was when I was first diagnosed) and it is an invisible illness that isn’t as well-known as others out there, for example ME/CFS, fibromyalgia (which have similar symptoms), even in the medical world.

I understand how tough it can be having to explain your condition to everyone, having to try and make people understand that you’re not just making an excuse to get out of something and also how living with an invisible illness can be the most frustrating thing ever at times! Sometimes I just feel like standing on the top of mountain and screaming YES, I HAVE INVISIBLE ILLNESS AND JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN’T SEE IT DOESN’T MEAN IT DOESN’T EXIST. Ahhh, that’s better.

Anyway, I won’t make any promises – English was never my strong point at school, always being better with maths (hence accounting) but I still managed to scrape through with 2 B’s, much to my surprise! My spelling and grammar isn’t the issue… I was top of my class (and year) in first school, having to have my spelling words picked from a dictionary because the spelling lists were too easy for me. It’s my creativeness and imagination that lets me down, which might surprise you considering I’m sat here writing a blog… The difference? Real life.

However, what I will promise – regular updates. How regular I don’t know. I mean come on, it took me years to even get this set up but I vow to write monthly, at least… I don’t want to keep you hanging for too long.

Well, that’s enough about me. I will be back soon but, for now, I’ll leave you with this lovely picture of me that was captured at the top of Blackpool Tower earlier this month.

Just incase you didn’t believe me…

See, I told you! Next time you’ll believe me.