I.....am a Blonde Zebra

   Why am I a blonde zebra? Well.... Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome patients are often considered "zebras" because of the saying that one of my doctors told me: 

"When you hear hoof beats, you think HORSES.

But zebras have hoof beats too, they're just much less common."

'You must be a zebra,' he told me. What he meant is that I (as well as most others with E.D.S. and/or P.O.T.S.) have a LOT of symptoms that don't exactly add up. 

If you go to the doctor with joint pain, stomach pain, 'brain fog', nausea, fatigue, etc., most doctors' first suspicions are usually much more common problems such as arthritis, ADD, gastritis and/or CFS. They hear the 'hoof beat' symptoms and think of 'horses'...much more common diagnoses. They also don't usually consider seemingly unrelated symptoms from completely different systems in the body (like skin, joints, muscles, heart, GI tract, etc.) to be all connected such as with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

Because of the lack of doctors who know much more than the typical, 'horse' diagnosis, 'zebras' or those of us with uncommon illnesses often wind up going to several doctors who suspect the 'horse' diagnoses and then hit a concrete wall when we test negative, before we find a doctor who suspects a 'zebra' diagnosis.

So I'm a zebra with hoof-beats like a horse's, if that makes sense ;) 

And the blonde part? 

The most obvious reason is that I AM a blonde. 

...The less obvious reason is that dysautonomia is more common in blonde, fair-skinned people. that's me!! ;D