A platform for patients, by patients.

Our Founder’s Care Journey

A Surprising Diagnosis

At age 25, our founder Danielle was thriving, working a dream job as an economic policy advisor at the White House. She was thriving except for one small thing — nagging fatigue and joint pain. She assumed it was due to her long work hours, but it just wouldn’t go away — that fatigue she felt in her bones. 

After a trip to her primary care doctor and some blood work, she received that call you never want to get: her results were back and the doctor needed to see her right away. Those test results launched a life-long journey for Danielle as a patient with chronic illness. One blood test led to dozens of specialist appointments, a multitude of painful tests, and — six months later — an autoimmune disease diagnosis.

A Search for Answers

A decade later, Danielle had adjusted to her “new normal” — until new, much more serious symptoms began popping up. Suddenly she couldn’t lift her arms to dry her hair, her left eye began to droop, her fingers were going numb. And the symptoms started to escalate: her heart began to race, it was hard to breathe, and she couldn’t eat without choking. When Danielle landed in the Neuro ICU for the first time, her doctors began emergency infusion treatments, but the cause of her new symptoms remained a mystery. 

The following months were filled with doctor visit after doctor visit, jumping from health system to health system, each time facing a dead end. In one month she amassed over 400 pages of medical records but was no closer to a diagnosis. Danielle was bedridden and overwhelmed. While her days should have been spent focused on conserving her energy for the most basic of tasks, she was forced to spend hours a day following up with doctor’s offices, reading medical journal articles, and printing and organizing her records.

Out of Struggle, a New Idea

The breaking point came when Danielle ended up in the ICU for a second time. While lying in her hospital bed she wished for someone who could guide her through this health journey. Someone who could organize her data, who could help her find the right doctor, who could explain the complicated medical terms, and who could light the pathway for the next steps in her diagnosis and disease management process. With millions of others facing similar diagnoses, she knew she couldn’t be alone in her desire for an easier patient experience. From that hospital bed, the idea for Chronius was born. 

Danielle never stopped being her own advocate, and, armed with medical journal articles, she identified the cause of her new symptoms, requested new testing, and ended up with two new inflammatory disease diagnoses — all it turns out, stemming from her initial autoimmune disease. 

Chronius empowers patients with chronic conditions to take charge of their care by automating health data collection and organization, streamlining appointment preparation, and providing a map for each patient’s care journey. Having a chronic illness is hard enough, and by building a platform for patients, by patients, Danielle hopes that every patient — whether they are facing an uncertain diagnosis, or trying to find a treatment that works, or just need help managing the “full time job” of being chronically ill — will get the support and relief they deserve.