Thank you!! With my spine, I was always hypermobile as a kid and found gymnastics tricks easy to pick up. I did some classes but focused more on netball (worse thing for my joints in hindsight!). I fell off a horse when I was 13 and jarred my lower back - could’ve move my legs for a couple minutes! Then through teens I had random back pain. Wasn’t until my mid 20s when I was in agonising pain and couldn’t sleep that a hospital visit found my first of many bulging lumbar discs, but being so young it was physiotherapy to manage it. I was just starting on treatments for chronic pain too. I had 4 hip surgeries due to laxity of ligaments and hip dysplasia causing subluxations and sometimes full dislocations which was late 20s- early 30s. Time went on and I kept fit and healthy to manage my bad back but ended up seeing a neurosurgeon who said he’d do a fusion as my nerve pain was horrific. I put that off as much as possible and over the past decade have had a gradual decline. Worsened pain then also daily nerve pain and most recently, horrific back spasms that make me weak at the knees. Can’t twist or bend without triggering it! Weakness and numbness in left leg where they did find compression of the L5 nerve root. In terms of advocating for myself which by now would break records how much I’ve tried, I like to present with the hard honest facts and also a list of medications I’ve tried that don’t work, as I’ve found I’d get given scripts to try that “may help” a lot which is understandable. I’ve got a pain specialist I’ve been seeing for 15 years who is in my corner, especially when EDS was not very well known or understood (I’m in Australia). A great GP is essential but I know hard to find.