Diagnoses

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Recently, I went to an osteopath to talk about some joint issues and wandering joint pain. I'm hypermobile, and, because of this, my joints are kind of stupid. This means that, frequently, I'm having trouble with some joint. The complication of this, is that it might be my right hip this week, my left ankle the next week, and my left shoulder the week after that. This means that trying to treat the specific one doesn't really make a lot of sense, because it will be something else next week, and the underlying cause isn't going away.

I've heard from some people that osteopaths can be really helpful for taking this seriously and thinking about approaches for moving forward. The one I went to was wonderful, took plenty of time with me and took me seriously. I'm working on following up on her recommendations, and that's all great. That's not really what I'm here to talk about.

I was a little nervous going into this, because I've always thought about my hypermobility as mild, and maybe even borderline on whether it was diagnosable. I don't know whether it qualifies as EDS or any other specific condition. I manage it really well, primarily through exercise and awareness.

When I went to the osteopath, she did some basic hands on tests and manipulations, and asked me to walk through certain movements to look for pain and limitations. As I did so, she commented multiple times on the hypermobility that she was observing. When we talked about my issues, she kept commenting on how classic they were with hypermobility.

Also, in looking at the notes in my file after that appointment, I noticed that in this system (which is where I started going in the past year for my PCP, etc), I'm officially diagnosed with thalassemia intermedia, rather than thalassemia minor. I knew that the doctor had ordered all the usual blood tests that basically say "yup, you have thalassemia". I hadn't realized that, in response, they wrote down intermedia. Minor means that you have one gene that produces less hemoglobin, but it doesn't really affect you and you don't have symptoms. Major is a really serious disease and you need blood transfusions to survive. Intermedia is a more recent diagnosis that says you're somewhere in between. Given that I do have symptoms, it makes perfect sense. But I had never had it on my charts before.

Getting these official diagnoses of things I've been dealing with my whole life was startlingly affirming. It doesn't really change anything, and it doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know. But because I manage them really well, and don't have serious function impairment, it's easy to let imposter syndrome convince me that they're not real or important.

I think there's definitely a point here about ADHD and imposter syndrome, but I still don't have an official diagnosis on that.

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