Michelle O'Sullivan

Senior Occupational Therapist

Mental Health OT (BAMH Endorsed)

Hypermobility is 'my thing'. It's where my knowledge, experience and training combine. It's where I feel I help clients best (via their OT).

Having graduated from The University of Sydney in 1st place and almost immediately jumping on a plane to live in rural Africa, I didn't realise hypermobility was my thing until I started working in Paediatrics once back in Australia.

In practice, I saw a lot of joint hypermobility and it made sense to me. I could visualise it, explain it, teach it.

It is where my training and lived experience collide in the best possible way.

So, I let it become my thing in 2010 when I started my first private practice, HypermobilOT, on Sydney's Northern Beaches. I saw kids and adults with hypermobility conditions of all sorts, ranging from a few hypermobile joints to severe connective tissue disorders like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and more serious ones like Marfan Syndrome & Loeys-Dietz Syndrome.

People came from all over the country.

Others recognised it, too.

Hypermobility is my thing.

In 2016, I launched an online hypermobility community, Hypermobility Connect, to provide a space where people living with hypermobility could access relevant and safe information and connect with other people living a similar experience. Today its main service is hosting the Hypermobility Connect: Parents group on Facebook and the Hypermobility Health Professionals Network.

I’ve had so many great opportunities to talk to people about hypermobility. Training health professionals (OT, EP, Physio, Hand Therapy) in Australia, speaking at conferences in Australia and the USA and now teaching Paediatric Occupational Therapists all about hypermobility from the OT perspective.

I am continuing to promote My Bendy Body: Living with Hypermobility in 3 (soon to be 4) different languages. So, as you can see.... Hypermobility is my thing.