Symptoms:
Symptoms of EDS include:
- Double-jointedness
- Easily damaged, bruised, and stretchy skin
- Easy scarring and poor wound healing
- Flat feet
- Increased joint mobility, joints popping, early arthritis
- Joint dislocation
- Joint pain
- Premature rupture of membranes during pregnancy
- Very soft and velvety skin
- Vision problems
Signs and tests:
Examination by the health care provider may show:
- Deformed surface of the eye (cornea)
- Excess joint laxity and joint hypermobility
- Mitral valve prolapse
- Periodontitis
- Rupture of intestines, uterus, or eyeball (seen only in vascular EDS, which is rare)
- Signs of platelet aggregation failure (platelets do not clump together properly)
- Soft, thin, or very stretchy (hyperextensible) skin
Tests performed to diagnose EDS include:
- Collagen typing (performed on a skin biopsy sample)
- Collagen gene mutation testing
- Echocardiogram (heart ultrasound)
- Lysyl hydroxylase or oxidase activity