Sherry Brady is a retired teacher who spent some summers being a teacher of teachers, providing professional development in Language Arts curriculum. After retiring and moving to San Diego, she worked with the Escondido Creek Conservancy teaching science to students through classroom lessons, live-insect labs, and guided naturalist hikes along Escondido Creek.  

Wanting to address her symptomatic muscle tightness through stretching, she enrolled in a yoga teacher training program. Despite passing with a 97% score, she continues to practice yoga and still experiences difficulty releasing the deep interior muscles of her back and hip flexors. To remain deeply in touch with the signals of her body, she maintains a daily practice of eating electrolyte rich diet, exercising, meditating, and relaxing in the jacuzzi. 

Sherry began to research and explore devices to improve walking. She experienced the Dnsys exoskeleton and was excited by how it displaced weight from the hips while it simultaneously lifed her thighs making walking so much easier.  Sherry wanted to share these benefits with others. She became a Spastic Paraplegia Foundation Ambassador to support, connect with, and bring encouragement to others living with HSP.

She explored additional technologies—including the Mollii suit for whole-body spasticity and pain relief, and the Cionic Neural Sleeve to assist with walking, reduce foot drop, and keep the legs active while sitting. Sherry wondered if using both of these electrical stimulations regularly was healthy- using the Mollii (every other day) and the CIONIC Neural Sleeves (daily). So, she asked a spasticity specialist. Dr. Ryan watched her walk with the CIONIC and said he could see her foot lifting when she walked. "The Mollii suit and the Cionic are great for you!"  Recently, Sherry learned she will be getting Cryoneurolysis surgery in June to improve walking, and she is very excited for this endeavor!  

Sherry integrated her experiences- along with insights from SPF TALKS, neuro physical therapy sessions, and talking with others with HSP - to create HSP-sandiego.com as a resource designed to support and connect others on their HSP journey.  Dr. Hande Özdinler said, "Personalized healthcare is the future." So to help strengthen this community's future,  please help by sharing your local doctors  names and locations where they provide HSP-related treatments and surgeries.  We'd also love to hear about  other devices and therapies you've found to be helpful.