At our Wednesday group at the Arthritis Foundation some of us were discussing sleep patterns of our children.
The question was raised about whether difficulty waking was linked the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I sent off an email to the Ehlers-Danlos Foundation in the U.S asking if there was an study into this.
My thanks to Susan Jenkins at the Foundation for sending us this abstract of some research conducted in 2006.
Here is the link to this Sleep Study.
Basically, the starting point of the study is the observation that people with EDS often complain of disturbed and non refreshing sleep.
The question the study explored was whether the sleep disturbance was related to chronic pain or a separate part of EDS.
The conclusion suggests that it might be a separate part of EDS and that more study would be needed to prove it.
So when a parent asks about whether the difficulty to wake her child may be part of the condition of EDS – I guess the answer is a tentative yes, probably.
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Are sleep disorders usually associated with connective tissue diseases?
Hi Linda, Thanks for your question. I recommend you have a read of a paper written by Dr Alan G. Pocinki called Joint Hypermobility and Joint Hypermobility Syndrome. This is a really interesting and easy read and it contains a section specifically talking about sleep. I am going to do some more research on this topic and publish some more on this subject soon. Please feel free to let us know about any other useful resources you find.
Best wishes
Julia