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Larissa Nusser and Denise Danton-Nizarre met eight years ago when Nusser attended Danton-Nizarre's first ever yoga class as a student living with multiple sclerosis.
"One of the issues she was having was balancing. Throughout the class, I kept saying to her, 'You can do it, you can do it, you can do it.' And that sort of became our theme," says Danton-Nizzare.
Nusser credits yoga with a dramatic change in her health outlook. So when they co-founded the You Can Do It Yoga Center in Richmond Valley, Staten Island, it seemed a natural fit to offer a special class for students living with MS. They have even created supplemental DVDs.
"I was diagnosed 10 years ago. I was in a wheelchair, actually, when I was diagnosed and I started transforming right in the first yoga class I went to," says Nusser.
Multiple sclerosis or MS, attacks the nervous system. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, about 400,000 Americans are living with the disease and 200 people are newly diagnosed each week. Symptoms can be moderate, with numbness in the limbs. More severe symptoms can include paralysis or vision loss.
The National MS Society highlights research that shows yoga helps improves outcomes.
Yoga participant Michael Weiss only has mild symptoms so far, and says yoga is just what he was looking for.
"Yoga has been great for me, because it is stretching and breathing and it gives me the ability to work on my flexibility, my balance and it also helps with my fatigue," says Weiss.
Don Loughran was diagnosed five years ago at age 40 with a more aggressive form of MS. He says yoga is one of the many approaches he's using to help slow the disease's progression.
"Multiple sclerosis has affected me mentally, spiritually and emotionally. For yoga, it helps me develop my mind, body and soul," says Loughran.
Most group exercise classes are designed to meet the needs of people with a wide range if abilities. MS progresses differently for everyone, and that is especially important here.
Sequences are modified for students whether they are they are seated or standing. And Nusser and Danton-Nizarre say those kind of adjustments fit into the variety of things yoga can do for their students.
"MS is not a one-lane highway. I'm not saying yoga is a cure for MS, I'm saying that yoga is one of the three things that I do every day. I think that everybody needs to find how many lanes their highway is and which highway they want to take," says Nusser. "For me, it is my daily injection, positive thinking and it is practicing yoga. It's really been working for me for the last 10 years. I've been relapse-free for 10 years."
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