Weeks 1–2
Pain
Calm the nerve down.
Hands-on manual therapy and, where it fits, dry needling take the edge off the irritated tissue, starting your first visit.
What We Treat
Back Pain & Sciatica treatment in North Liberty.
Sciatica is not always a disc. A back that hurts is not always the thing that is broken. One cause-first evaluation is how you find out which one you actually have.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- You brace both hands on the counter to get all the way upright
- A burning line runs down one leg before you’re even out of the car
- You roll out of bed sideways, because sitting straight up isn’t happening
- You know which chair in the house you can sit in, and for how long
- Your kid picks up their own toy, because bending down isn’t worth the risk
- You still have the stretching sheet from your last round of PT, and it never touched this
Two or more? Then the useful question isn’t what hurts. It’s why.
Why It Happens
Sciatica is a symptom. Something is causing it.
Your back hurts for a reason. The reason is often not the back. A hip that stopped rotating, so the lumbar spine rotates instead. Deep stabilizers that went quiet after your first flare-up and never switched back on. A nerve that is irritated rather than compressed. Eight hours a day loading the same segment the same way. Sciatica gets blamed on a disc constantly. Sometimes it is a disc. Often it is not, and that changes the whole plan.
So if you already did physical therapy and it didn’t hold, that isn’t a character flaw. It usually means the exercises arrived before the cause did. Natalie Johnston, MPT, has 24 years in practice and a fellowship in pain sciences. Finding the cause somebody else missed is the entire job. You have already read everything, and already tried the thing that didn’t work. That is exactly the kind of patient who does well here. And the longer a back guards, the more the hip and the other leg end up paying for it.
The Honest Truth
Waiting doesn’t make it wait on you.
If you keep waiting
- The rest of your body starts compensating, and the compensations start hurting too
- Flare-ups get closer together, and take longer to settle each time
- You move less to avoid the pain, which weakens the exact things that were protecting you
If you start this week
- Visit one is a cause-first evaluation, and you leave knowing what we found
- Hands-on treatment starts the same day, not after a second appointment
- You get a plan with an endpoint: a real one, not an open tab of visits
Nobody regrets starting too early. Plenty of people tell us they wish they had come in sooner.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for your back.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for back pain and sciatica.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Give the motion back.
Mobility work reopens the hip and the stiff spinal segments that have been guarding, so your back stops doing their job.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Make it strong enough to trust.
Progressive hip and trunk strengthening rebuilds the stability that was missing before the pain ever started.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Leave with a plan, not a printout.
Lifting, bending, and twisting get tested under real load, and you leave knowing exactly what to do the day it twinges again. That’s the endpoint.
i have been to see Naatalie 2 times and the first time i went she did needling on me and my back stoped hurting and my leg. so i hadee andothe issue with my leg because i have bad disk at l4 and five and have been offered surgury but now after this i have to say i will not go through with that wow!!!! what a change. i would highly recommend this to any and every one as it really works
Shared by Roger V. · Back pain and leg pain, discs at L4 and L5. Quoted exactly as he wrote it, and the decision he describes about surgery was his own.
Before: you plan your first ten minutes of the morning around how bad it will be
After: you get up, get going, and you know what to do the day it twinges
Back Pain & Sciatica
All four phases
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for back pain.
Usually not, and it’s rarely the first step. Disc bulges and wear-and-tear findings turn up on scans of people who have no pain at all, so an image doesn’t always name the cause. We start with a cause-first evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, to find what is actually driving your symptoms. If imaging turns out to be genuinely necessary, we’ll help you get it. You don’t have to wait on a scan to start feeling better.
Usually yes, and movement tends to help more than rest does. Hurt doesn’t always mean harm, and total rest leaves a back stiffer and weaker, which sets up the next flare-up. What matters is the dose. A licensed physical therapist works out what your back can handle at your evaluation, then adds load as you improve, one-on-one, every visit.
A full plan for back pain and sciatica runs through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent. How long that takes depends on how long you’ve been dealing with it, so we won’t guess at a number before we’ve evaluated you. What you get either way is a plan with an endpoint. You’ll always know which phase you’re in and what’s left, instead of an open-ended string of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon-Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
- (319) 382-2743 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed in Iowa
4.9 · 79 Google reviews
Typical response: under 2 business hours
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Motion Matters Physical Therapy and Wellness
- 660 West Cherry St. Suite 2, North Liberty, IA 52317 (opens in a new tab)
- (319) 382-2743
- Fax: (319) 359-4114
- natalie@ptmotionmatters.com
- Mon-Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm