About Me
This movement practice is led by an individual that understands the battle of chronic pain herself. Danielle was misdiagnosed since elementary school and finally received her diagnosis of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome in 2021 at the age of 27, after much of her own advocacy and research.
Prior to her diagnosis, Danielle studied Exercise Physiology in University, where she fell in love with her own yoga practice. She has always loved being active, but has also lived a life with chronic pain and unexplainable symptoms. Her compassion for those with chronic pain like herself led her to enroll in her first Therapeutic 200 Hour Registered Yoga Teacher Training through Soma Yoga Institute in 2016. In 2017, she graduated with her Bachelors in Exercise Physiology, all while battling an array of symptoms.
Receiving her diagnosis was bittersweet. She finally felt validated and everything made sense, but that also came with having to process both the physical and emotional aspects of this new diagnosis. EDS often comes with other comorbidities, many of which Danielle lives with. She was ready to start diving deeper into researching her own connective tissue disease.
She realized that she had to get back into a more EDS-friendly movement routine, especially as her body became deconditioned due to worsening symptoms and after endometriosis excision surgery. The high intensity interval training and power yoga routines that she previously committed to were putting her body under more stress and no longer serving her.
Once Danielle learned how important it was to continue with safe and effective movement as someone with EDS, but how rare it was to find a Physical Therapist who understands her condition better than she did herself, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
In January of 2022, Danielle received a continuing education course for her Yoga Certification, titled "Restorative Yoga for Chronic Pain and Nervous System Balance.” In September of 2022, she was awarded the opportunity to participate in the Integral Movement Method (IMM) course through the Ehlers-Danlos Society ECHO led by Jeannie di Bon.
After successfully completing these programs, she now feels confident accepting new clients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders, and other chronic illnesses to participate in her Movement Program. She will be providing others living in chronic pain a safe space to return to a mind-body connection followed by effective movement, by using an individualized approach as each person with chronic pain presents differently in regards to physical limitations, comorbidities, symptoms, fatigue, pain, etc.
Combining all of her knowledge in physiology, anatomy, body mechanics, alignment and chronic pain, Danielle is excited to continue making a difference in a community she is extremely passionate about. She is looking forward to empowering individuals with hypermobility and chronic pain to know they are capable of more than they realize, and to help them gain the strength and stability they need to safely return to the hobbies they miss and/or the movement routines they may have put on hold.
Qualifications
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Montclair State University
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Soma Yoga Institute
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Soma Yoga Institute
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Bench to Beltway to Bedside: Advocacy for Endometriosis