Learn More About Danica
Hey there! I'm Danica, and I live a full and fulfilling life with severe Alpha-gal syndrome. I'm also a social worker by training, and that combination is exactly why people reach out to me when they're trying to figure out what comes next after a diagnosis.
How we got here: My Alpha-gal syndrome diagnosis story.
A tick attached to the back of my knee for a few hours overnight while I was sleeping, on a Thursday in April 2024. By Saturday, the bite site had gone black and swollen. The first medical provider I spoke with told me nothing was worth worrying about because the tick hadn't been attached for 72 hours. (FYI: that's a rule about Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.) Nobody mentioned Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS).
For weeks, I'd feel fine in the morning and be sick again a few hours later, and nobody could tell me why. I mentioned a vague memory of a red meat allergy to a second doctor, without having Googled anything, and I still had to push to get a “tick bite” panel run. It came back normal, because Alpha-gal wasn't part of the standard panel yet. So, I researched the connection myself, brought the right test to my primary care doctor (one of the best humans in the world), and finally had a name for what my body had been doing to me for over a month.
That was the beginning of a summer of hospitalizations, navigating a complicated medical system and a relatively unknown and severely misunderstood allergy, a chronic urticaria diagnosis, and a version of my life that had gotten a lot smaller than I wanted it to be. I know how it feels to sit across from a doctor who doesn't believe you. I know the devastation of canceling a trip you'd been looking forward to for months. (I had to miss speaking at a conference in Greece!) And I know how disorienting it is to realize that the systems meant to help you weren't built with your body in mind.
Why you can trust me with your Alpha-gal syndrome journey…
Before AGS, I spent nearly a decade running the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center at the University of Missouri, working as an advocate and educator for people navigating some of the hardest situations in their lives. At the same time, I built a thriving business as a full-spectrum birth doula and educator, specializing in traumatic and medically complicated births. Both of those roles taught me the same thing: information only helps someone when it's crafted into a plan they can actually use in the middle of a hard day, not a stack of facts they have to piece together alone.
That's the work I do now, and I was doing it informally long before I built a brand around it. When a close friend got her Alpha-gal diagnosis, she called me before she called anyone else, because she knew I'd walk her through the hidden ingredients, planning conversations with her doctors, and the questions worth asking, without making her feel like a burden for asking them.
I’ve navigated AGS while pregnant, while raising three kids, while traveling, all while continuing to work full-time (and often more). This isn’t something I wanted to become an expert in; I had to become an expert in order to thrive.
Where you might be right now…
Most people I talk to have already made it through the hardest stretch. They've survived the elimination diet, the ER visits, and the flood of new information, and they've landed somewhere I think of as stabilization: not actively reacting anymore, but still white-knuckling every restaurant meal and reconsidering every trip. If you're starting to ask yourself what you can realistically do now, that's exactly the question I built Alpha Gal Travel to help you answer.
I help people with Alpha-Gal confidently navigate real life, travel, and social situations through practical communication strategies, whether that's your first trip since diagnosis, a wedding you're dreading the catering at, or a work trip you can't miss. When you’re ready, let’s talk. I get it. I’m here for you.
What working with me looks like…
I'm not a doctor, and I won't ever tell you what your body can or can't handle. I won’t give you medical advice or point you in a direction that isn’t evidence-based.
With a background in advocacy and empowerment, I can promise you will leave our conversation feeling inspired and capable. What I can offer is hard-won pattern recognition on this exact allergy, including: what the hidden ingredients could be called on a label, how to talk to a chef so you get a useful answer instead of a guess, and how to build a plan for a trip instead of bracing your way through one.
If you're getting ready to travel again and want someone who has already sat across from a confused server, called countless pharmaceutical companies for ingredient information with my particular medication’s lot number, and figured out what to say at a crowded bar or theme park counter, reach out. Let's set up a time to talk through your plan, and I'll help you build it around the life you want back.
Ready to Connect?
Grab a time to meet below!