You're a high-performance sports car.

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Now, you might be thinking, "A sports car?  My body feels more like an old clunker held together with duct tape and hope." Hear us out. 

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Dr. Allyson Barnes likes to think of her patients as high-performance vehicles because at your core, that's exactly what you are. It's not about looking sleek or powerful all the time; it's about the intricate, specialized system under the hood.

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You can't take a finely tuned Corvette to just any old garage on the corner and expect it to run perfectly. The same is true for your floppy body. Your complex system requires a mechanic (a healthcare professional) with the right training and a deep understanding of how everything works together. Every engine in a high-performance car is different and requires a specific type of fuel. For some, that might mean specialized additives like supplements, a cleaner burn from an anti-inflammatory diet, or removing certain categories of foods altogether.

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You may be wondering if the issue is a fuel issue, an engine problem with your metabolism, or an electrical malfunction where your nervous system's wiring is struggling to coordinate. 

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Which often leaves us asking: well, which is it? Knowing floppies, the answer is usually some sort of combination of “all of the above.”

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Here's the frustrating truth: for a long time, the medical community didn't understand hypermobility. It was thought to be rare, so it never made its way into the curriculum. This wasn't a failure of effort; it was simply a knowledge gap. Now that we know hypermobility is far more common, the medical world is finally catching up.

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This means more mechanics are being trained, more patients are being heard, and more care is becoming available. However, it takes time. High-performance sports cars are advanced machines. Learning to recognize their unique wiring and fine-tune their systems doesn't happen overnight. At BAR Therapies, we're proud to be part of the solution. Through the BAR Institute, we're sharing what we've learned to help grow the number of skilled mechanics ready to care for floppies in the future.

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As we continue to learn and expand access, we want you to hold onto this powerful idea:

      You are not broken.

      You are not fragile.

      You are a high-performance sports car.

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