Asperger's and "lax" joints

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I am the Mom of an Aspie and the ortho doctor says he has lax joints. He gets hurt a lot, especially in joint areas. I think he is not coordinated enough for sports like football and track and with his joint problem he should not play these sports. Also sports and school together seem to tire him more than the normal students competing. I need lots of input.

You are right to be concerned. When I was in my late twenties and early thirties, I was an exercise freak who lifted weights regularly; I was trying to make myself feel better. It worked, though marginally. The problem is I did permanent damage to my joints. I still exercise, though now it consists of walks and such.

When I was a kid, my joints were so loose I could lay my thumbs down flat on the insides of my forearms. If your child is the same, I think you are right to be concerned.

Well, I'm NVLD, nonverbal learning disorder, and sorta probable Aspergers, but NVLD is less vague imo than Aspergers in a diagnosis. Anyway...

Uhm, I never broke a bone as a kid, actually. My joints seem fine and everything. So I can't speak for all Aspies on a whole, but I didn't have joint problems. I'm not hyperflexible by any means, though. So I can't help you there, but you could give him glucosamine suppliments and fish oil, lots of athletes take those for joints and inflammation. Can't really help you specifically on joints, as that's not terribly a problem for me. If he's just randomly pulling tendons and stuff, though, I'd say he needs more protein.

However, for the fatigue, I have to say, nutrition is incredibly important for Aspies. I guess the "Hypersensitivity" theory makes a bit of sense. I need more protein than most people to function, along with vitamins. I currently take a multivitamin, extra B vitamins, fish oil ( 2 capsules), folic acid, papaya enzyme, and a magnesium/zinc supplement. Before I started taking that cocktail of vitamins, I'd need like 2 energy drinks a day, or a pot of coffee just to "keep up" and feel awake in the morning. I skate at noon 5 days a week, for an hour. I also lift 2-3 days a week. But yeah, taking vitamins, getting a reasonable amount of sleep, eating breakfast, all that stuff.

Also, you really have to watch what he eats. The reason I say this, this is a bit personal, but my father and mother, when they were married, my father had to do ALL the cooking. My mother didn't know how to cook really, besides like really basic stuff like a baked potato. That, and she had no idea about seasoning at all, she'd never put anything beyond salt on food. So my father did all the cooking. My father would cook pretty much everything from scratch, usually he'd buy organic stuff, too. A general meal would be something like, salmon, brown rice, and some swiss chards, or chicken and rice. But a balanced meal with all the food groups, you know, and whole grains. I was the only one of the kids who'd eat his food. My sisters wouldn't eat it most of the time, and giant fights would ensue. I'd say the simple issue of food was probably a big cause of the divorce. My father also would make sure I took my vitamins every night, too, so I was always on a multivitamin as a kid.

Anyway, divorce happens, my mother does the cooking now. She basically just gets frustrated, and has us just make our own canned food and hot pockets and frozen dinners, everyday. I went from being, not bony skinny, but still skinny, under my dad's diet, of all good food, to fat in literally under a year of my mother's diet of processed food. I ended up learning to be a pretty good cook just to literally preserve my life. In comparison to my father, my mother almost never bought me multivitamins, or would complain they were too expensive.

So now that I'm 20, I'm realizing my father was right about that. So the moral of my long story, make sure your child's nutrition is top notch, as if it's not, your kid is gonna be like "I HATE MY LIFE AND I'M A NIHILIST NOW" at like age 14.

As far as the sports themselves, make sure he always plays SOMETHING. That he's always into some kind of athletic activity. He's not built to sit at a computer or play video games all day. Football may be a bad choice, I mean it's a pretty injury prone sport in general. Also, team sports could get hard for him, or they could do the reverse and allow him a group to fit into. But, if team sports get hard, make sure to have him try all the individual sports he can, even if it's something odd, like figure skating (what I'm into now, kinda odd as a 20 year old male) or like, fencing. Track and field should be fine, imo. I just hated football as a kid, it was almost traumatizing to me, being on a football team.

For me personally, too, I have NVLD, which makes my visual spatial skills suck, so basically all sports are like 10x harder for me to learn, as I gotta like "figure out" everything, it doesn't come very naturally. This isn't the case with all Aspies, but if he's a NVLD strain, he's gonna have a hard time with sports, unless he himself spends a lot of time practicing stuff, or he gets a lot of individual coach attention.

Anyway, yeah, make sure his nutrition is good before you go "my son is too fragile to go outside of the house!" I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Good luck, and I hope your son does well.

As 1000Knives pointed out, Fish oil is important for joint pain/inflammation. It's also important that he gets all his vitamins and eats plenty of protein (preferably chicken or fish). The more balanced the diet, the better it'll be for his health and while a healthy diet doesn't guarantee anything, it certainly won't hurt his mental and physical health.

I just had tendinitis in my knee and am still feeling the effects of it. However, by taking vitamins and fish oil (you can buy it at the store...or eat fish) and doing simple stretching, I was able to recover much faster than I anticipated. So, it certainly can't hurt to have a strong fish oil intake either.

I don't want to discourage your son from sports and I do think he should try to stay active. However, he should focus on building up an aerobic base if he's tiring quickly. So, something like jogging/swimming/biking for 30 minutes at a slow, easy pace. If you're jogging, the idea is to be able to speak and not gasp for air. It might seem too slow and too easy but it'll pay off in the end. Because what this does is it'll train your body to be stronger and to be able to move faster without having to gasp for air. After building a strong base, your son can move onto doing sprints/sports running without getting hurt/tired easily (especially since all your muscles have more endurance).

In addition to the things already mentioned, ground shark cartilage is also very good for joints. I thought it was just esoteric nonsense, but it actually worked for me.

I've never had joint problems (I actually have pretty good balance and freakish flexibility), but I agree that stretching might be immensely helpful in gaining a sense of balance/stability. It also helps with circulation, and a number of other issues. Yoga might be perceived by him as too "girly"...maybe another slow, breathing-focused discipline such as T'ai Chi? Protein is pretty important, true, but then it's almost impossible to be deficient in it without also being calorically-deficient. I'm a big fan of fiber, personally, which many Americans don't get nearly enough of- things like oats, artichoke, and plums.

I have severe Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (a collagen production disorder) which results in me even dislocating joints in my sleep, bruising easily, getting cut easily with poor healing, poor vision and blood vessel/organ problems etc.

I suggest you read "The Hypermobility Handbook" by Brad Tinkle. It's best to exercise in a pool if the laxity is severe and sometimes bracing is needed. Things like biking and using an elliptical are good too; you just don't want to do anything that has direct impact on the joints.