Click Here to Download this Blog Post – The Long Road to Answers: Why You Were Misdiagnosed for Years (Part 15)

By Dr. Nicholas L. DePace, M..D., F.A.C.C – Cardiologist specializing in autonomic dysfunction, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and POTS.

If you are reading this and finally have a diagnosis of hEDS or HSD, you might feel a mix of relief and anger.

For many patients, the diagnosis comes decades too late. You may have struggled through grade school, high school, and your career feeling like you were fighting a losing battle against your own body. You dealt with pain, extreme fatigue, brain fog, and joints that slipped out of place (subluxations)—all while being told you were “fine.”

The “It’s All in Your Head” Trap

The most common story in the EDS community is the patient who sees a dozen different doctors and is eventually labeled with “Anxiety” or a “Functional Disorder.”

Why does this happen? It’s not necessarily because the doctors are bad; it’s because the disease is a master of disguise.

The “Too Many Symptoms” Problem Medicine is often divided into specialties. You see a urologist for bladder issues, a gastroenterologist for stomach pain, a neurologist for headaches, and an optometrist for eye trouble.

• The eye doctor looks at your eyes and sees nothing wrong structurally.
• The stomach doctor does a scope and sees nothing wrong structurally.

Because these doctors often don’t talk to each other, nobody sees the big picture. They see a patient with a laundry list of complaints that don’t seem connected. When a doctor can’t find a physical cause for so many different problems, they often conclude the problem must be psychiatric.

Connecting the Dots

The reality is that these “unrelated” symptoms are actually all the same problem. Your connective tissue is everywhere—in your eyes, your gut, your bladder, and your nerves. When the tissue is faulty, everything malfunctions.

The Chicken or the Egg?

It is true that many hEDS/HSD patients suffer from anxiety and depression. However, it is crucial to understand the order of events:

• The Misconception: You are in pain and tired because you are anxious or depressed.
• The Reality: You are anxious and depressed because you are in chronic pain, your body is unreliable, and you haven’t been believed for years.

The mental health struggles are secondary. They are a natural human reaction to living with a debilitating, undiagnosed illness. You aren’t crazy—you’ve just been trying to survive without the right manual for your body.

Where to Seek Expert Care?

It is important to seek out a clinician with expertise in EDS to make an accurate diagnosis and create a treatment plan. One of the nation’s leading centers is Franklin Cardiovascular Associates, under the direction of Nicholas DePace, MD, FACC. They are located in Sicklerville, New Jersey. franklincardiovascular.com, (856) 589-6034

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About the Author

Nicholas L. DePace, MD, FACC is a board-certified cardiologist and Medical Director of Franklin Cardiovascular Associates. A graduate of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. DePace has decades of clinical, academic, and research experience and has held faculty appointments as a Clinical Professor of Medicine, becoming one of the youngest full professors in Philadelphia at the time of his appointment.

Dr. DePace specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of autonomic nervous system dysfunction (dysautonomia), including POTS, autonomic dysfunction associated with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), chronic fatigue, and anxiety-like conditions that are frequently misdiagnosed. He is nationally recognized for his work on parasympathetic and sympathetic (P&S) nervous system imbalance, a core mechanism underlying many complex chronic disorders.

In addition to treating patients from across the United States, Dr. DePace is a prolific clinical researcher and author of multiple nationally distributed medical textbooks published by Springer and W.W. Norton, focusing on autonomic dysfunction, mitochondrial disorders, cardiovascular disease, and mind–body medicine.

👉 View Dr. DePace’s professional profile
👉 View medical books by Dr. DePace