Dr. Anna Victoria Ekstrom, DO

My appointment with her was so all around horrible I don't even know where to begin. There's her complete and utter lack of respect for my requests as a patient with PTSD, her apparent complete inexperience performing Osteopathy on EDS patients, and just general rudeness commenting on my appearance and giving me career "advice" despite meeting me all of one time. I can start with the most egregious offenses: I had gone to relocate my left wrist, and was excited that she listed EDS as something she was experienced in. Clearly this experience does not extend to Osteopathy, because within 5 minutes after I left the appointment, my left wrist undid the work she had done and went back out, and my right wrist has been much more unstable and troublesome since that appointment a few months ago. My right wrist dislocated (and pretty much spontaneously at that) for the first time a few weeks after that appointment, and I've been dealing with recurrent subluxations as well, when previously it… was relatively stable and I didn't have nearly as many issues with it. For about 10 minutes after the appointment my fingers were red and swollen and I could barely bend them but apparently that was a sign it was "working." The second egregious offense was that I have PTSD and therefore am triggered by unexpected touch. My mother when making the appointment was extremely clear about how she was ONLY to work on my wrists, and she seemed to be understanding, at least over the phone. At the appointment, after working on (but in reality worsening the instability of) my wrists, she pushed to just work on my elbow, and then work on my shoulder, and I was too distressed to say no. Then, I felt her hands on my back assuming she was working on my shoulder blades, but nope! Apparently she just "got into it" and decided to work on my ribs, and AFTER THE FACT decides to tell me that it could help, or my ribs could be pretty sore for a few days. Not only was this extremely emotionally distressing and honestly felt a bit violating given how clear we were beforehand that I was only comfortable with her working on my wrists, I had been dealing with pretty severe rib pain because of my EDS nearly every night and had I known beforehand there was any chance of it causing more pain I would've said absolutely not. The general rudeness included suggesting that I should get this alternative medicine orthodontic treatment that would also cosmetically alter my face to make it more symmetrical, and her career "advice" was telling me I could never handle my planned career and I should pick something less stressful, again after meeting me ONE TIME. She managed to work in an anecdote about how at an airport someone mistook her for her son's wife or sister, and told me that she was able to pick up that my finger tips were hypermobile and unstable while imaging and most other practitioners wouldn't (I was already well aware of this, and the doctor who later diagnosed me with EDS somehow managed to figure that out too...) I can't attest to whether a patient without EDS or PTSD would have a better experience, but given that she felt it appropriate to just "get into things" without getting the patient's consent beforehand, and the inappropriate comments and anecdotes sprinkled throughout the appointment, I don't have high hopes that they would. But if you have PTSD or EDS, please avoid seeing this doctor for Osteopathy. My appointment was not only deeply emotionally distressing, but her "treatment" of my hypermobile and instable wrists just made them worse. Seeing no practitioner at all would've left me in a better emotional and physical state than seeing her.