Disclaimer: The following blog is not intended as professional advice and only as a personal anecdote, the following is not sponsored by the Body Braid
The Body Braid. It’s a product that was pitched to many of us by our community years ago as a fantastic, full body support brace that could help with proprioception and prevent the hyperextension of joints with a more natural feel than a standard brace.
My interest in it first began just before I was diagnosed in 2022, when I fully dislocated both of my shoulders for the first time. Having already been on a long public waiting list to see a rheumatologist to get diagnosed, I’d already fallen down the information rabbit hole to learn all I could about EDS – including what types of supports or braces were out there.
Once my shoulders hopped and skipped out of their sockets to never be the same again, I knew from my research and the endless horror stories I’d read and seen from others, that I desperately needed something to help with them other than being in an arm sling for eternity.
I tried several shoulder braces unsuccessfully, as commercial off the shelf braces aren’t exactly made to fit someone that’s 4 ’10 ” tall. As I already knew about the Body Braid, including the hefty cost of it and the painful price tag of getting it shipped to Australia – with not many other options available to me at the time, I caved and forked out the money to buy only the Arm Braid.
My initial thoughts, 3 years ago
Disappointment. For something I had read so much about online, from so many people who had raved about how incredible it was, I couldn’t believe how much I disliked it.
From all the research I’d done at that point, I had never seen a single negative reaction to it – making it all the more of a bummer. To this day I’ve still seen very few negative reactions to it, and I’ll explain why further on.
So why did I dislike it so much?
After putting it on for the first time I found that the bands were so tight, so immensely strong that they were pushing my joints out of their sockets. It wasn’t a supportive sling, it was a sheer-force death trap I’d shimmied myself into.
I tried to see if it was how I was wearing it that was causing the issue (spoilers: it wasn’t) or if I needed to adjust it more. I thought maybe I just need to break it in a little, so I tried wearing it casually to see if it would help (spoilers: it didn’t).
I found after wearing it for a maximum of 30 minutes at a time, it would both exhaust me and injure my joints pretty badly. It felt like a kick in the guts considering the pretty penny I’d forked out for it on my very low income at the time.
After a few weeks of trying and failing to make it work, I gave up on it. I considered selling it online but couldn’t gather up the energy to do it – so it was delegated to my growing box of various braces in the bottom of my clothes cupboard, where it lived for the next few years.
Why it didn’t work for me back then
The reason is simple. The Body Braid, and by extension the Arm Braid, were not initially made for people with connective tissue disorders like EDS. Especially not those with severe cases of EDS. They were made for the average consumer as a tool for exercise, yoga, dance and the likes.
As the popularity of the Body Braid grew among the EDS community, they started marketing more towards us. But back in 2022, this wasn’t the case – the Body Braid wasn’t marketed towards us, and many of us were trying it out for the first time in desperation.
During this time I was at the beginning of my EDS starting the “domino effect”. Where your body becomes so weak, it begins to break down in fast succession, one joint after the other until you can barely move an inch without something subluxating or dislocating. My case was severe and to a point I was experiencing 100+ subluxations with a few dislocations on some days. Having a better perspective years later, I know my circumstances were far different to those I’d seen trying these products.
Trying it on again, 3 years later
My workplace surprisingly is what inspired me to give the Arm Braid another shot.
I’m in a much different position to where I was 3 years ago. My body is irreparably damaged in places, but with the right help I’ve been able to mend some of that damage, and I’m now even able to work part time around 11 hours a week without too many issues.
I have the privilege of being work from home only, but I try to make it into my workplace once a month for a few meetings or the occasional in person task. While I’m there I’ve occasionally seen someone here or there wearing either a full or partial Body Braid, and it got me thinking. Maybe I should give it another go.
Recently I’ve needed to upgrade my work from home set up in order to do more computer based tasks, and in doing so meant that I need to sit upright more often – something that an excess of tends to be pretty damaging for my wacky fragile body.
With my new setup doing most of the work for me, I slipped on the Arm Braid and surprisingly – I didn’t hate it. I actually loved it. It was everything I thought it initially should have been for me; a strong, supportive sling that helped me keep my joints in place and gave me a sense of stability. That feeling made me glad that I didn’t sell it 3 years ago – and despite my initial displeasure, that it finally was right for me.
Nowadays, the only issue I have with it is I get some pretty garbage coat hanger pain from my POTS, and the Arm Braid can exacerbate it a bit. Okay and maybe the fact that I still think the bands are maybe a bit too thick but I’m not going to rag on it too hard after finally getting it to work for my body. I still won’t wear it for longer than 2-3 hours, but it helps a lot.
The conclusion and an important lesson
There’s a lesson here in all this, and it’s that despite being a very popular product, the Body Braid is only for people who are somewhat fit.
If your joints are literally hanging out of your sockets, this is likely not something you should be wearing. Instead you most likely need professionally fitted braces, medical compression garments or custom braces/compression garments.
In the end after initially buying the Arm Braid, I had to spend another $600 on two custom made compression garments for my shoulders and my collarbones. Which in finding someone who was able to even measure for custom compression garments and order them – took over 5 months. Which didn’t include the waiting time for actually getting them.
I understand getting professional medical help can be hard, it was for me which was why I initially went the way of the Arm Braid, as despite my body crumbling, doctors put their hands up and went “well I dunno what to do about it or who you should see” and left me to outsource basically everything myself. Huge bruh moment.
When possible, always seek professional advice before buying a Body Braid. If you have a good EDS aware physiotherapist they can potentially assess if it’s right for you or not.
Now remember: one should not simply buy a Body Braid without expert advice – it could end up damaging you.
Bendy Kaz 
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