​Lena Dunham Reveals She Suffers from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

BY Sarah MurphyPublished Nov 4, 2019

Girls creator and star Lena Dunham has revealed that she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
 
The 33-year-old took to social media to explain the condition, after paparazzi photos were published of her walking with a cane.
 
"An Ehler-Danlos syndrome flare means that I need support from more than just my friends... so thank you, sweet cane!" she wrote on Instagram. "For years, I resisted doing anything that would make my physical situation easier, insisting that a cane would 'make things weird.' But it's so much less weird to actually be able to participate than to stay in bed all day."
 
She went on to defend her choice of wearing her nightgown in public, as she was en route to the doctor and wanted to be "full cozy."
 
"I mean, didn't Bieber wear hotel slippers for like five years?" she continued. "Yeah, so I can wear my glamour nighty for two hours. And then an hour later, I'm in a meeting look tackling the job I love."

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is described by the U.S. National Library of Medicine as "a group of disorders that affect connective tissues supporting the skin, bones, blood vessels, and many other organs and tissues."
 
Read her full post below.
 
Dunham has previously been candid about her health challenges, publicly discussing her battle with endometriosis and mental health.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I could choose to be embarrassed by these paparazzi pics- I mean, that's probably the point of someone publishing them in the first place- but I'm really not. I could lie and say it was an early Halloween look (Don't you get it? I'm going as a con woman leaving a Florida Keys jail after being acquitted of murdering her husband, and now she's trying to get disability license plates.) But the truth is just: This is what life is like when I'm struggling most with chronic illness. An Ehler-Danlos syndrome flare means that I need support from more than just my friends... so thank you, sweet cane! For years, I resisted doing anything that would make my physical situation easier, insisting that a cane would "make things weird." But it's so much less weird to actually be able to participate than to stay in bed all day. And yes, you'd better believe I'm wearing my nightgown. I was walking four feet to the car to go to the doctor and I wanted to be full cozy. I mean, didn't Bieber wear hotel slippers for like five years? Yeah, so I can wear my glamour nighty for two hours. And then an hour later, I'm in a meeting look tackling the job I love. That's the two-fold life of a woman with chronic illness; we still rock our dreams and goals and passions (and fashions) and we live many lives in one day. Tell me about your day!

A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on

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