I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a heritable connective tissue disorder, and have been practising yoga for six years.
Recently I have been experiencing eye problems and have stopped attending class. I have an appointment with an eye specialist next week and hope to resume my practice after that.
Meanwhile does anyone with experience of this condition have any advice about whether I should resume my practice? Do I need to avoid certain postures?
WTIA
Hello Enigmaman,
Ehlers-Danlos appears to be a very rare chronic condition. I had never heard of it before. I don’t know if and how it may affect your eyes. But I have just read that it comes with hypermobile joints, so you should take this into account in your yoga practice. Have you talked to your yoga teacher?
The most obvious answer to your question is to ask your eye doctor. What poses you may or may not do (for your eyes) depends on your eye condition. So please ask your eye doctor about practicing yoga.
Some yoga poses are contraindicated for some eye conditions because they increase intraocular pressure. We are talking about conditions like glaucoma, retinal bleeding, and retinal detachment. Then you should avoid inversions (headstand, shoulderstand, handstand, downward dog, standing forward fold).
Hi, out of interest if you are hyper mobile, then does that mean strengthening postures are more important?
Notmally in a well balanced class you want to work on flexibility and strength, but with a hyper-mobile, does this equate to extremely flexible body? in which case it would seem that holding static postures for longer may be a good plan, balanced with some dynamic movements to reduce tension maybe. So more balance on strenght/static.
Does this make any sense to any one? I mean all our bodies are different, so only you will know, but in terms fo general advice is this a good starting point? have I understood the basics on this?
Obviously I know it’s important to understand all joints/limbs, which are flexible to, and if there are any other issues.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
You haven’t shared enough about yourself and your practice for me to answer you in a sound fashion.