Hey, listeners, you're about to hear a very special curbsiders episode, something we haven't

really done before.

We have a guest, Dr. Linda Blustein, who appeared on the show back in April, talking about

hypermobility spectrum disorder and hypermobile Eilers Danlos syndrome.

She's an expert on the topic, and we had so many questions from our listeners that we

decided to send them to Dr. Bluestein, and she kindly agreed to answer them, and that turned into this episode, which you're about to hear. So thanks to Dr. Bluestein for doing that, and enjoy the show. The Curbsiders podcast is for entertainment, education, and information purposes only, and the topics discussed should not be used solely to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any diseases or conditions. For the more of the views and statements expressed on this podcast are solely those of those and should not be interpreted to reflect official policy or position of any entity, aside from possibly cash-like-law-hospital and affiliate outreach programs. If indeed, there are any, in fact, there are none. Pretty much, we aren't responsible if you screw up. You should always do your own homework and let us know when we're wrong.

So the first question comes from Amanda, who is a nurse practitioner.

And Amanda asks, I have a lot of people asking for help with EDS.

I don't have a geneticist anymore in my local area to rule in or rule out different types or subtypes of EDS or the Aler's Danlos syndromes.

In this case, is it okay to go ahead and make the diagnosis based on the Bighton criteria,

or should I be looking for a geneticist to test this definitively?

So first of all, I want to say to Amanda, thank you so much for caring enough to ask.

The fact that you're even trying to help your patients with possible Aylers-Danlos syndromes

or hypermobility spectrum disorders already puts you ahead of the curve.

Many people struggle to find providers who are even willing to consider

these diagnoses, so your openness is a huge gift. That said, I want to gently clarify something

that trips up a lot of clinicians. The Biten score alone is not enough to diagnose hypermobile

EDS. It's just one small piece of the puzzle. And this is a specific tool to

assess for generalized joint hypermobility. It's not an EDS scoring tool. And even for that,

it has its limitations. Well, why does the Bighton score have limitations? We know it's a really,

really frequently used tool.

Well, first of all, it's age and gender dependent. People tend to become less flexible with age,

...