Yeah, alas, being female — or perceived as female — unfortunately does mean not getting taken seriously as often as someone who is male or perceived as male.

And I'm sorry that I may have contributed to your anxiety by affirming things that you've said in the past about reading lists of symptoms for POTS/dysautonomia and/or EDS. I guess since my father and grandmother have/had probable EDS and neither of them have needed to use a wheelchair, it hadn't occurred to me to be concerned about that possible eventuality.

I suspect, and I'm no expert, but I suspect that given it appears to be a dominant genetic condition, you could take an inventory of your family history to assess the likelihood of you losing substantial mobility over the years. If none of them have lost substantial mobility and still are or were able to get around okay without anything more than a cane, then it's very likely that with proper training, use of braces and other devices, your mobility won't be impaired much by EDS in the next few decades. And by the time that you might need joint replacements — like my father and his mother — the technology will be *way* more advanced than what we have available today (and what we have today is pretty good).