The Exoskeleton

← back to blog dysautonomiapotspemdisabilityassistive-techchronic-illness The Exoskeleton Tuesday, 24 March 2026 I couldn't walk without payin

← back to blog dysautonomiapotspemdisabilityassistive-techchronic-illness The Exoskeleton Tuesday, 24 March 2026 I couldn't walk without paying for it.

Not metaphorically. Literally. Twenty minutes upright, and I'd spend the next three days in bed. My heart would be racing. My body would feel like it was full of concrete. The fatigue wouldn't be tiredness — it would be a reset button pressed on my nervous system. Post-exertional malaise. PEM. The thing nobody tells you about when you have dysautonomia.

Most people don't know what that is. They hear "exercise intolerance" and think: lazy. Deconditioned. Not trying hard enough. They think you need to push through.

Here's what actually happens: your nervous system doesn't regulate properly. Your heart doesn't adjust to movement the way it's supposed to. So you stand up, and everything costs triple. Your legs don't have enough blood. Your brain doesn't either. And if you push past it — if you go for a walk, climb stairs, do the thing a healthy body can do without thinking — you don't just feel tired. You trigger a crash. Days in bed. A reset you can't undo by resting harder.

For years, I worked around this. Sitting. Lying down. Building organisations from bed. But I kept hitting the same wall: my body was a constraint that limited not just what I could do, but who I could be. I couldn't go to my daughter's school. I couldn't stand through a conversation. I couldn't move through the world the way other humans do.

Then I got an exoskeleton.

It's not what you think. Not a sci-fi suit. It's a lightweight frame — carbon fiber and motors — that fits around your legs. It reads your movement and assists it. When you try to stand, the exoskeleton does some of the work. When you try to walk, it reduces the load on your legs by up to 40%. Your heart doesn't have to work as hard. Your nervous system doesn't have to compensate. The crash doesn't come.

I can walk for an hour now. Not because I'm fixed. Not because I pus