Lena Dunham: No, This Wasn't a Halloween Photo

The writer-actor has Ehler-Danlos syndrome
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 3, 2019 3:05 PM CST
Lena Dunham Explains the Bottom of This Photo
Lena Dunham, with cane.   (YouTube)

Lena Dunham wants to explain her whole pajamas-and-cane look—which, sadly, had nothing to do with Halloween, USA Today reports. "The truth is just: This is what life is like when I'm struggling most with chronic illness," she wrote on Instagram alongside a recent paparazzi pic of her in PJs, with a cane, leaving an LA doctor's office. "An Ehler-Danlos syndrome flare means that I need support from more than just my friends … so thank you, sweet cane!" What's more, she says, she's without shame: "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."

For the medically inclined, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome "is a group of inherited disorders that affect your connective tissues—primarily your skin, joints and blood vessel walls," per the Mayo Clinic. Sufferers often have "overly flexible joints and stretchy, fragile skin." This isn't Dunham's only intimate health reveal, either. In 2018, she wrote a Vogue essay about how she got a hysterectomy due to endometriosis. Then she Instagrammed about having her left ovary removed. "But the reason I’ve been so insistent on sharing my experiences, I think, we have to be reminded again and again and again that we’re not alone," she tells Us Weekly. "I know that even when people [are] like, 'Enough is enough, quit talking about your, you know, uterus or whatever,' I want other people to know that they're not alone." (More Lena Dunham stories.)

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