How Did I Get Here?

I was born and raised in sunny San Diego, CA, and always loved being active, competing at high school varsity & AAU level basketball for four years before college. 5 months after getting my B.A. in Marketing at Washington State University, I was in a car accident suffering a traumatic brain injury. Over the next 9 years, I went through a very slow and difficult recovery often in a cognitive haze, struggling through tolerating severe treatments and an enormous amount of medication to combat the persistent insomnia, depression, pain, and gastrointestinal issues. With the fortitude I developed as an athlete, I continued to persevere during this lengthy healing process and eventually started regaining my independence cognitively and physically, developing the self care I’d lacked.

As I got healthier, by June of 2019 I began running regularly. Unfortunately what began as a mild pain in my lower left leg turned into excruciating agony radiating from my shin. My left leg was covered in bruises and scalding hot, feeling as if my bones were freshly shattered with an immense pulsating pressure. My skin from the knee down through my toes felt like there were bugs crawling on it and just the smallest bit of cycling at the beginning made it feel like my tibia was literally splitting and muscles were tearing. The spasms and contractures were relentless and constant limb guarding was the only way to survive. After 8 months of barely being able to put my foot on the ground, a bone scan in February 2020 finally confirmed the diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) or RSD.

I was started on typical medications for neuropathic pain and received repeated lumbar sympathetic blocks with minimal improvement, finally making the decision to have a DRG Spinal cord stimulator (SCS) implanted in 2021. Although the SCS reduced symptoms, living with it while being as active as possible came with its own set of challenges, leaving me with the question, how do chronic pain patients actually

live and improve this once there are no more treatments to try? That’s what I have learned to do - and have turned thatexperience into helping others do the same. Once diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome in 2019 after recovering from the TBI for 9 years, I set forth on learning everything I could about pain and human movement so I’d have more tools to decrease pain, and help others do the same. I realized our own bodies are the greatest tool to create change, yet patients often lack the language and education to empower themselves to take back more control of situations the traditional medical system is unfortunately not built to support.

I pick up where doctors leave off, focusing on optimizing the conservative pain management strategies we as patients can impact through my signature MARSMethod with individualized movement and lifestyle strategies. My clients learn how to decrease pain from chronic conditions, while improving the consequences of de-conditioning and compensations that develop from living with them. I previously have a B.A. from Washington State University in Marketing. You can learn more about my professional background on LinkedIn, and my story and work in this article. Current coaching certifications/credentials include:

• OPEX Certified Coaching Professional (CCP)

• Level 3 Neurostudio practitioner

• Pain Free Performance Specialist (PPSC)

• Adaptive and Inclusive Trainer (AIT)

• Cross Fit L1 (CF-OL1)

• USAWL-L1 (olympic lifting)

• Low Pressure Fitness L1-Trainer (LPF-L1)