Credible resources for examples of “normal” mobility or range-of-motion?
This community is great and I’ve finally found out I’m not a weirdo and I’m not alone. I’ve learned so much here!
I find a lot of pictures online of extreme examples of hypermobility features (stretchy skin, specific joints) but no reference pictures of “normal”.
My doctor is newish to me (last fall) and I’d like to ask her for a referral to a specialist who can diagnose and offer support surrounding hypermobility. She’s not going to take me seriously if I use FB reels as reference material and I can’t blame her for that.
She referred me to physical therapy for my shoulders and wrote the diagnosis as “hypermobility of joint” without my ever using the word. (Was doing the party trucks with them as a kid.) So that’s a good first step. But I’d like to talk with her about how this is systemic and give examples of what is outside of “normal” but I’m not sure.
I think my fingers are hypermobile but I don’t know. The small joints bend back but not as extreme as many of the Google pictures I see. Same with my knees. They don’t hyperextend backwards but they feel unstable and I’ve locked them while standing and walking for my entire life, not knowing that this isn’t typical. There are other joints that are questionable (including a foot surgery) and I have pain in all joints, as well as gastrointestinal and gynecological conditions, and ADHD.
As a 53yo female in the US I’m unfortunately in that demographic that’s easily written off as “middle-aged lady complaining about aging” but my symptoms are lifelong.
If anyone has recommendations about how to approach this or for resources for data, I’d be grateful. Also I wonder if I should wait for the new diagnostic criteria to be published at the end of 2026?