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Knee and wrist pain + injury
In the fall of my last year of middle school, I was a competitive gymnast, then for the MMS team. I started having pain in my right knee, especially after I hit my left leg hard against the floor while swinging on bars, almost breaking my kneecap. A doctor put me in a knee brace, but I was also having wrist pain. As a gymnast, I assumed it was normal. But after a week or two, I realized how similar it was to my knee pain in what aggravated it, made it worse, etc. -
OT and PT
The doctor, suspecting something genetic, gave me the hypermobility/Beighton test. I passed greatly, and I was then diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Type III, or serious hypermobility. This was causing my pain; my body was too flexible and the basic muscles were not strong enough to support it all, so my joints were constantly moving around. I did occupational therapy for my wrists and physical therapy for my knees for eight weeks. -
The Decision: Quitting Gymnastics
The OT and PT greatly helped my joints feel better than ever, but I was told that it would not last long. I could constantly feel the pressure gymnastics put on my body, and as a competitive dancer as well, I could see how well dance worked with my physical therapy in keeping my body active but healthy. And being over 5'5'', it was super difficult to progress any further in the sport or have it even be easy. I finished my gymnastics season competing on only two events, and decided I was done. -
The Decision, Part 2: The Right Mindset
Quitting gymnastics was a hard decision, but a good mindset helped. I made sure to only include myself and my parents to make sure it was an individual decision. As seen in Making Healthy Decisions page 6, an individual decision makes things a lot more prompt! However, not using my teammates opinions' did take lots of POV's out of the question, which could have helped reason my decision (page 6). I am still very glad that I made an individual decision, as it was quick and saved energy! (page 5). -
How could others have impacted the decision?
If I had talked to my teammates, they might have convinced me to push through the pain and keep going! But I did not include them because it was semi-personal, and knew they would want me to keep going no matter what. I didn't involve my dance teachers either, because they would just encourage me to get more injured for dance! I supported the same thing as well, but having an individual decision made was much more efficient (page 5).