Remember the First Time?

Hey Everyone!  After my diagnosis, I encountered alot of different things.  I was asked many questions by family, friends and most of my doctors.  Questions ranged from, "What is it called again?" to "Why does it seem like you were fine one day and then got a diagnosis and now you are really bad?"  The second question is one of the things I've kind of struggled with explaining to people. 
Many parts of my Ehlers-Danlos and Fibromyalgia progressed.  Certain things I have known to be a problem starting when I was younger that have slowly gotten worse.  There are definitely things, though, that I never struggled with that suddenly hit, in some cases quite literally, overnight.  One thing I specifically remember is waking up one night, pre diagnosis, with insanely horrible acid reflux.  I had never experienced it before and the only reason I knew what it was was my fiance at the time struggled with it too.  I ended up throwing up alot and it was horrible.  Since then, I have to take 1 to 2 Ranitidine (an acid reducer) every night or I will wake up with a little 'throw up' or acid in my throat.  I'm sorry if that's too graphic, it is, however, the truth.  That happened overnight.  One night I was fine and the next, I wasn't.  Acid reflux issues is common with EDS.
I know that when I was about 2, my elbow dislocated frequently.  My parents would take me to the emergency room and they would put me back together.  Unfortunately, I never had a doctor or nurse in the ER that knew about EDS or thought my case was strange enough to look into it further.  They passed it off as nursemaids elbow and taught my parents how to put me back together so we didn't have to rush to the ER every time I fell apart.
Two things I find crucial to help others understand is that it isn't rare with EDS to be doing okay and then suddenly your health just plummets.  When that happens, patients usually start looking into why.  I probably wouldn't have fought so hard for an answer, a diagnosis, if I was suffering more than normal.  Here's the thing though, up until we get a diagnosis, we usually don't complain too much to family and friends about our symptoms.  I know, personally, it gets to a point where you don't believe that people care or even believe you.  I was told that what I was going through wasn't really as big of a deal as I thought it was.  I was told my physicians that I just had bad posture.  I also was raised to not talk about the negative stuff.  No one wants to hear about the bad things you experience.  So, before the diagnosis, my validation, I kept it quiet.  That is probably part of why people thought with a diagnosis, I got really bad really fast.
Some things that progressed include the widespread pain and fatigue.  I honestly can't remember ever not being in pain.  It may have existed when I was a little kid, but I don't remember it.  For the longest time, I thought it was normal to be in constant pain, at least that was what doctors told me...
I wanted to see what other EDSers experiences were with remembering the first time something happened.  Those stories will be shared in a different post... Stay tuned :)
PS. Sorry for the really long post. Love you all!