Ehlers-Danlos and Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s

02/14/2026

Valentine’s Day felt like the perfect time to share a little smile.

Living with Ehlers-Danlos and hypermobility can be serious business, but we believe your care journey should also include hope, encouragement, and moments of lightness along the way.

At the Ehlers-Danlos and Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s, our goal isn’t just to treat symptoms.
It’s to help you feel supported, understood, and optimistic about what’s possible for your future.

Because while laughter may be the best medicine…
finding the right care team comes pretty close.

Today, we’re wishing our patients and community a Happy Valentine’s Day… one filled with kindness, support, and small moments that remind you how strong and valued you truly are.

No matter where you are in your journey, we’re cheering you on. 🫶🏻♥️

01/31/2026

🩶🦓 International Zebra Day

In medicine, there’s a well-known saying:
“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses — not zebras.”

For many patients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders the answer isn’t the obvious or expected one. Their symptoms are real, often complex, and frequently missed when care relies only on what’s most common.

Per The Ehlers-Danlos Society, the zebra became our symbol because those with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder are the unexpected. “Sometimes when you hear hoofbeats, it really is a zebra.”

Zebras also remind us that no two cases look exactly the same… just like EDS and hypermobility. Each person presents differently, requires individualized care, and deserves to be listened to and believed.

🫶🏻🦓 Today, on International Zebra Day, we honor our patients and the importance of looking beyond assumptions, asking better questions, and seeing the whole picture.

12/18/2025

✨🩶 EDS Care, Reimagined: A Deep-Dive Series Into Our First-of-Its-Kind Clinic

We’ve had an amazing wave of new followers, so it feels like the perfect time to open the doors a little wider and invite you into what makes our clinic so unique.

We’re preparing to launch a new series designed to help everyone — brand-new faces and long-time friends — understand who we are, what we do, and why our approach to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) & Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD) care is unlike anything else out there.

✨ Introducing:

EDS Care, Reimagined: A Deep-Dive Series Into Our First-of-Its-Kind Clinic

If you’re new here, the Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s was born from personal lived EDS experience paired with Dr. Jason Addison’s professional expertise and passion for this complex condition.

Our program integrates detailed evaluation, gentle innovative therapies, customized prescribed devices, focused in-clinic care, and coordinated follow-up for both local and traveling patients.

This series will take you behind the scenes and provide a comprehensive overview of:

🏥 Our clinic
✨ What makes our program truly unique
🩶 The heart behind our team
📅 How our Fast-Track treatment program works
✨ Customized prescribed home devices… and much more!

We’re excited to share this journey with you — piece by piece, chapter by chapter. If you have questions, please feel welcome to add them below — we’ll be including community questions throughout this informative series. 🫶🏻🦓

━━ ✿ ━━

🩶 A quick note: As many of you know, I am navigating my own upcoming testing and neurosurgeries in NY, and may be releasing posts at a gentler pace, but this series is incredibly important to me and to our mission. Please know that we have a full staff supporting me and keeping everything moving for you in the clinic.
Warmly,
Belinda - EDS Coordinator

12/10/2025

🩶🦓 December is Vascular Compression Syndromes Awareness Month — a time to shine light on conditions that can deeply impact those living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD), yet often go misunderstood or overlooked.

Vascular compression syndromes occur when blood vessels or nearby structures become compressed — disrupting blood flow, affecting nerves, or altering fluid dynamics. These conditions can lead to a wide range of symptoms that often overlap with EDS-related issues, making awareness especially important in our community.

Some of the more commonly discussed vascular compression syndromes in the EDS/HSD population include:

• Eagle Syndrome (vascular type)
• Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome
• Nutcracker Syndrome
• May-Thurner Syndrome
• Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS)
• Pelvic Congestion Syndrome
• Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS – vascular type)

Even though vascular compression can significantly affect quality of life, many patients spend years searching for answers. Awareness, education, and proper evaluation are essential — especially within the EDS community, where connective tissue laxity can contribute to these challenges.

At the Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s, we do not treat vascular compression syndromes directly. However, we believe deeply in helping patients feel seen, heard, and supported throughout their medical journeys. Our role is to offer education, validation, advocacy, and whole-body care for the many interconnected symptoms that EDS and HSD can bring.

🩶🫶🏻 Today, we honor all those navigating vascular compression. Your strength, your persistence, and your voice matter. By raising awareness, we work together toward earlier recognition, better understanding, and improved care for everyone facing these complex conditions.

━━ ✿ ━━

A Personal Note from Our EDS Coordinator, Belinda

As someone who is preparing to travel to New York for additional in-depth testing with an EDS-specializing neurosurgeon, I know firsthand how overwhelming vascular compression symptoms can be. I’ll be documenting my journey so others can feel less alone. If you’re navigating similar symptoms, please know I see you, I understand, and you are not walking this path by yourself.

Along the way, I’ll also be sharing how Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) is playing a major role in preparing my body before a significant neurosurgery — and how it will continue to support me afterward. FSM is one of the most powerful tools we use in the clinic to reduce inflammation, calm irritated nerves, ease pain, and create the best possible internal environment heading into a major surgical season.

And it doesn’t stop there. FSM will also be a key part of my post-op recovery, helping manage pain, control inflammation, and support healing day by day. My hope is that by sharing this openly, patients can see what’s possible when the body is supported both before and after surgery using innovative technology — all through your own prescribed device.

If my story brings even one person a little clarity, comfort, or the courage to take their next steps toward relief, then every moment of this journey is worth sharing. 🫶🏻🦓

━━ ✿ ━━

Disclaimer: This post is meant to raise awareness and provide general education. It is not medical advice and should not replace care from a qualified provider.

12/02/2025

🫶🏻💜 Giving Tuesday: Spotlight on Melanie’s Mission to Live - Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

From Belinda — EDS Coordinator, Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s

Today, on Giving Tuesday, I want to share something very personal — and very important.
For well over a decade, Melanie Hartshorn and I have walked this difficult road together, side-by-side. We share Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Adrenal Insufficiency, and a long list of heavy related diagnoses.

And yet… Mel faces the hardest days with a smile.
She never stops fighting.
She encourages others, even when she is the one hurting most.

She is brave.
She is kind.
She is determined in a way that humbles me every time.

━━ ✿ ━━

💜 Where Mel Is Now

Many of you already know Melanie’s story through her page, Melanie's Mission To Live- Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and through news outlets that have followed her journey. After years of life-saving surgeries, medical halos, hospital stays, and unimaginable setbacks, she now faces another urgent neurosurgery — one that is essential for her safety, mobility, and quality of life.

This isn’t optional.
This is survival.
It’s critical.
And she cannot face this next chapter without support.

Mel explains it best in her own words — please take a moment to watch her share her story here:
🎥 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/14QgoHDZSkH/?mibextid=wwXIfr

━━ ✿ ━━

🎁 Our Giving Tuesday Gesture

For Giving Tuesday, we wanted to do something meaningful to help Melanie raise funds for this critical surgery. Our clinic has sponsored a raffle that Melanie is hosting by donating a $250 Amazon Gift Card. If you feel led to enter the raffle we’re supporting, her link and details will be in the comments.

━━ ✿ ━━

💜 Why This Matters

I’ve watched Mel go through things no person should ever endure. We’ve held onto hope together through surgeries, spinal instability, adrenal crises, and days when it felt like the mountain ahead of us was too steep to climb.

But she keeps climbing.

After so many battles and years of fighting for her life, Mel still holds onto her dreams. She wants to live. She wants to become a teacher. And she wants to continue uplifting this community with the same bravery and grace she has shown for so many years.

Right now, she has a large sum to raise for a critical one-of-a-kind surgery.

On this Giving Tuesday, I hope you’ll give a few minutes of your time to watch Melanie’s video and listen to her need in her own words. If you feel led, please click share, follow her page, and help spread awareness of what she’s facing. And for those who feel moved to enter her raffle and support her fundraiser, your kindness would be such a blessing to her.

━━ ✿ ━━

With love, hope, and deep gratitude

Belinda Addison
EDS Coordinator
Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s

Thank you for helping Melanie keep fighting for her life and her future. 🫶🏻💜

11/20/2025

🦓🩵 500 Strong — Thank You for Being Here With Us

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being here… for sharing our posts, for telling others about your experience, and for helping us spread hope throughout the EDS and hypermobility community.

Our mission has always been simple:
to provide gentle, EDS-informed care — built from real lived experience and advanced clinical expertise — and to offer true options to people who have so often felt overlooked.

Reaching 500 followers means something powerful:

More patients finding answers sooner.
More hope being shared.
More knowing that there’s another path forward.
More visibility for a community that deserves specialized, compassionate care.

Your support means the world to us.

━━ ✿ ━━

Here’s What’s Coming Next

With our community growing, we’re preparing to share even more:

✨ A deeper dive into our EDS Treatment Program
✨ Additional EDS Informative Series topics
✨ Local clinic updates + new announcements
✨ Patient experiences and success stories
✨ A heartfelt message from our EDS Coordinator, Belinda — who also walks this journey herself — with a peek into her own pre-hab process as she prepares for an upcoming major neurosurgery, using the same tools and protocols our patients rely on

━━ ✿ ━━

Thank you for being here, for believing in what we’re building, and for helping bring visibility to a community that too often goes unseen.

🫶🏻🩵 We are honored to walk this road with you.

11/13/2025

🧡🦓 EDS Informative Series: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
CRPS Awareness Month Feature

📣 This Week’s Feature:
This week, we’re focusing on Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) — a condition that is often described as one of the most painful experiences a human can endure. CRPS develops when the nervous system becomes dysregulated after an injury, surgery, or even a minor trauma, causing pain that far exceeds what the original injury would normally create. For many, the pain is burning, searing, or electric. It can feel constant, unpredictable, and deeply overwhelming.

✨ What You’ll Learn:
This series covers:
• What CRPS is and how it develops
• Why it can affect people with EDS & HSD more severely
• Signs, symptoms, and daily challenges
• How CRPS impacts circulation, sensory nerves, temperature, and mobility
• Our gentle, EDS-informed approach to supporting patients with CRPS

💡 Why It Matters:
CRPS isn’t just pain — it’s a condition that can change every part of a person’s life. Many people with CRPS describe feeling trapped in a body that seems to misinterpret every signal — even a light touch, temperature change, or breeze can provoke extreme pain. Tasks like standing, moving an affected limb, or even wearing clothing can become nearly impossible.

For individuals with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders, the risk of developing CRPS is higher due to frequent injuries, joint instability, surgical interventions, and a more reactive nervous system. And when CRPS develops in someone already living with chronic pain, the emotional and physical toll can be overwhelming.

Too often, people with CRPS are dismissed, doubted, or told that nothing more can be done. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. With the right approach — one that gently calms the nervous system, restores circulation, and reduces hypersensitivity — meaningful relief is possible.

At the Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s, our mission is to change the way CRPS is understood and treated. Through gentle, evidence-informed care designed for sensitive systems, we help patients find hope and pathways toward relief.

Follow along through our infographic series as we break down what CRPS is, why it happens, and how we support individuals living with it at the Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s using innovative, noninvasive approaches designed to reduce pain and restore hope.

Too many people in the EDS community are shuffled between specialists without clear answers. Our mission is to create a place where those living with complex conditions — including CRPS — feel seen, supported, and empowered with real solutions.

🫶🏻🧡 Because no one should face this level of pain feeling alone. Knowledge is power — and you deserve answers, compassion, and pathways to relief.

━━ ✿ ━━

Disclaimer: This post is meant to raise awareness and provide general education. It is not medical advice and should not replace care from a qualified provider.

11/10/2025

✨ Patient Testimonial
Because Every Story Matters ✨

Every time we share a patient’s experience, our goal is simple: to show what’s possible — to give others with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome real hope, real options, and real examples of meaningful change.

With permission, we’re honored to share the words of one of our patients whose experience reflects exactly why we do what we do each day at the Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s.

━━ ✿ ━━

Here is her story, in her own words:

“Two weeks before meeting Jason, I found myself sitting desperately in a physical therapist’s office, being asked, “if you’re in so much pain, how do you sleep?” I responded, “I usually just curl up into a fetal position and wait for the exhaustion to outweigh the pain.” I’m newly 24, and my day-to-day life consisted of forming scars along my stomach from constantly having to pull my ribs back into place and staring at less than a full flight of stairs with dread, fatigue, and wonder— is this how my almost 80-year-old grandmother feels? As a young woman with EDS, I have been forced to form a bias against doctors. I am used to being gaslighted, to being disbelieved, to being injured by medical professionals who tell me I’ll “grow out of it.” But I was in a flare up, sitting between hopelessness and pain, and I decided to take one more chance. On my very first day of FSM treatment, I actually started getting that hope back. I was texting my mom, telling her that “Dr. Addison” actually introduced himself by his first name, that he (unprompted) acknowledged the struggles of young women with EDS in the medical field, that he asked for consent before he touched me. I was put in a massage chair, offered water, electrolytes, and a blanket, and had five machines attached to towels around my neck and feet. It has been one week since I got my first treatment, and as I am sitting here at 7pm, I am realizing that I have not had to put my ribs back into place one time today. I walked multiple flights of stairs today without difficulty. I have actually been sleeping through the night. I am not begging by body to focus on a master’s program through a blinding headache. I used to live at a constant 5/10 pain. Right now, I’m at a 1. I know flare ups are inevitable, that not every day is going to be as good as today. But I have the tools to deal with those flare ups now. I have my hope back. My life is opening up.”

━━ ✿ ━━

🫶🏻🤍 We believe every story matters — and that each one shared can help someone else see what’s truly possible and find their next step forward.

11/06/2025

✈️ Big things happening this week!

Dr. Jason Addison is officially on his way to begin the journey towards Fascial Counterstrain certification — another step toward expanding our gentle care options for patients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility.

This specialized technique helps release deep fascial restrictions that contribute to pain, nerve irritation, and tension — making it a perfect fit for the EDS and hypermobile community.

Stay tuned for updates from training week — we can’t wait to share what’s ahead! 🤎🦓

Wishing you safe travels Dr. Addison!

11/04/2025

✨🤎 Something new is coming to the clinic — and it’s the perfect gentle addition!

We’re always looking for gentle, effective ways to help those with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility feel and function their best — and this next addition is one we’re especially excited about!

Dr. Jason Addison is heading out this week to begin the journey of becoming certified in Fascial Counterstrain (FCS) — an innovative manual therapy that identifies and resets abnormal neuromuscular reflexes within the fascia — helping to reduce pain, inflammation, and movement restrictions without force or manipulation.

If you’re curious how Fascial Counterstrain works, check out this presentation from the Ehlers-Danlos Society:
🎥 https://youtu.be/QzqMGDEbVkU?si=PeMEqAMe1CDrcJhN

🫶🏻🤎 We can’t wait to bring this innovative approach to our patients at the Ehlers-Danlos & Hypermobility Clinic at Addison’s!

Dr. Brianna Cardenas has a diverse background in pain medicine, athletic training, and fascial counterstrain, Brianna is a trusted and experienced profession...