Dr. Taryn Cass

07/23/2026

No judgement 🙅‍♀️

Eating, especially eating enough, can be particularly challenging for people with conditions like hypermobility spectrum disorder, hEDS, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, dysautonomia, and nervous system dysregulation.

Don’t make things harder on yourself by setting unrealistic expectations like suddenly eating 120g of protein per day if you’re used to 30g.

Chronic illness is hard enough without beating yourself up. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

And with realistic guidance from someone who actually understands you.

07/22/2026

“You’re too tight to be hypermobile.”

This is one of those statements that makes me cringe.

Because hypermobility does not always look like effortless flexibility.

In fact, many hypermobile people are also incredibly tight.

When your joints don’t provide enough passive stability, your muscles often compensate by working overtime to hold you together. Over time, that can leave you feeling stiff, sore, and full of “knots”-even if you have an underlying connective tissue disorder.

That’s why someone can be both:

• Hypermobile and tight.
• Flexible in some joints and restricted in others.
• Unstable and incredibly strong.

If we assume muscle tightness rules out hypermobility, we risk treating the symptom while missing the reason those muscles are working so hard in the first place.

Good clinicians don’t just ask, “Are you flexible?”

They ask:
• Were you told you were flexible or ‘double-jointed’ as a child?
• Do your joints feel unstable?
• Do you have frequent sprains or injuries?
• Do you bruise easily?
• Does anyone else in your family have similar symptoms?

Complex bodies rarely fit into simple boxes- they’re not supposed to.

If you’ve spent years being told your symptoms “don’t make sense,” you deserve someone who’s willing to look at the whole picture, connect the dots, and ask better questions.

If that sounds like the care you’ve been looking for, I’d love to help. You can book a discovery call through the link in my bio to see if we’re the right fit.

Save this post for the next time someone tells you you’re “too tight” to be hypermobile, and send it to someone who’s been searching for answers.

07/16/2026

A lot of people won’t love this take, but…

Having a chronic illness doesn’t automatically mean you’re equipped to treat chronic illness.

Before anyone comes for me in the comments- hear me out.

Having a chronic illness myself absolutely made me a better doctor. It gave me empathy that can’t be taught. It helped me understand what it’s like to feel dismissed, to spend thousands of dollars searching for answers, and to live inside a body that doesn’t follow the textbook. It gave me the opportunity to learn the ins and outs low histamine, keto, autoimmune, and anti-inflammatory diets from a first-hand perspective. And it gave me unique insight into the challenges we face with chronic illness.

But so did 8 years of medical education.

And perhaps even more importantly…seeing thousands of different patients whose bodies all respond differently.

There are incredible coaches out there. Many have spent years studying, continue their education, understand their scope, and provide invaluable support. I refer patients to great coaches, and they can be an important part of a support team.

But there’s a growing trend that worries me:

Someone finds something that worked for their body…and suddenly they’re recommending the exact testing, nutrition, and protocol that worked for them to everyone else.

I see the consequences of that all the time.

Patients who spent thousands on unnecessary or poorly chosen functional labs.

Patients taking supplements that didn’t address the actual problem or sometimes made them worse.

Complex chronic illness isn’t pattern matching.

It’s understanding physiology. It’s recognizing contraindications. It’s knowing when symptoms point toward MCAS instead of mold, dysautonomia instead of adrenal fatigue, SIBO instead of “candida,” or when multiple conditions are interacting at the same time.

That’s not something you learn from living through one case. Your health deserves more than someone’s anecdote.

If you’re living with a chronic illness, you deserve more than someone’s success story.

You deserve someone who knows how to build a treatment plan that’s unique to your body- not just repeat

07/16/2026

My wish for you.

07/14/2026

07/10/2026

PMDD rage gets all the press, but the brain fog and difficulty focusing deserve some of the spotlight. Why?

Estrogen helps support dopamine.

So when estrogen drops in the late luteal phase, your already-questionable dopamine supply may be like: “buddy, I have nothing left to give”

Add in shifting progesterone, changes in neurotransmitter sensitivity, sleep disruption, and increased stress sensitivity and suddenly:

- your ADHD meds feel less effective
- executive function has left the chat
- everything is overstimulating
- rejection feels approximately 400% more personal
- the task you do every day is now impossible
- and someone breathing (or chewing) near you is a personal attack

For some people, this is more than PMS.

ADHD and PMDD have a very real, and still wildly under-discussed, overlap.

And no, the answer isn’t always “try harder,” “get more organized,” or “just manage your stress.”

Sometimes we need to look at the whole picture: hormones, histamine, nutrient status, blood sugar, nervous system regulation, sleep, and the way your brain responds to cyclical hormone shifts.

Your last molecule of dopamine deserves backup. 🫡

Save this for luteal phase you. And send it to the friend who disappears into the hormonal abyss with you every month.

07/08/2026

Hands up if you’ve gotten at least one new diagnosis this year 💅