What We Treat

Chronic Pain treatment in North Liberty.

You have been told it is stress, or aging, or something you live with. Pain that lasts has a mechanism, and a mechanism can be explained. It starts with a cause-first evaluation, not another guess.

Pain past three months Flare cycles Already tried PT Book My Free Consult

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like your week?

  • Deciding at 7am whether today is a day you can leave the house
  • Running the math on an errand before you agree to it
  • A flare that shows up two days after whatever caused it
  • Cancelling on people so often that you stopped making plans
  • A folder on your phone of scans and labs that all came back fine
  • Being told to try stretching again, by someone who never examined you

Two or more? Time spent guessing is time the pattern gets more practice.

Why It Happens

Chronic pain is not a longer version of new pain.

Past about three months, the tissue is rarely the whole story any more. The alarm system itself has changed. Nerves that carry pain signals get better at their job, so a smaller input sets off a bigger alarm. That is real biology, and it is not you exaggerating.

So we look at the whole loop instead of one sore spot. Which movements your system now guards. Where strength quietly disappeared while you were protecting yourself. How sleep, stress and breathing are feeding the volume. Natalie Johnston is a Fellow in Pain Sciences and a Therapeutic Pain Specialist with 24 years of experience, and Dr. Adam Janowski, PT, DPT, PhD, did his PhD research at the University of Iowa on chronic fatigue and chronic pain syndromes, including ME/CFS, long COVID and fibromyalgia. This is the pain they chose to specialize in.

You have already read everything. You have already tried the thing that did not work. That is exactly the kind of patient who does well here.

A woman wincing with her hand pressed to the side of her neck

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

Four phases. Built for a system stuck on alarm.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like when pain has outlasted the injury.

Weeks 1–2

Pain

Turn the alarm volume down.

Hands-on work, breathing and gentle graded movement settle the system. You also learn, in plain language, why it keeps firing.

Weeks 2–6

Prime

Get motion back without a flare.

We reintroduce the movements you have been avoiding, starting under your flare threshold on purpose and building from there.

Weeks 6–10

Perform

Build capacity you can trust.

Strength and endurance work brings back the things you quit doing, in the order that matters most to you.

Weeks 10+

Prevent

Own the flare plan.

You leave with a written plan for a bad week, so a flare becomes a few days you manage instead of a spiral you dread.

Natalie is amazing! I have a lot going on at once right now, but she is so tuned in and careful to not only apply the appropriate treatment at the appropriate level, but spends time to really understand the situation and what may be informing pain patterns and dysfunction to evaluate the best path forward. Her knowledge and skill as a PT are remarkable and I am so grateful to have her on my care team as I continue to navigate chronic challenges.

Kelly B. · Navigating chronic challenges

Today: a flare decides what you are allowed to do

The goal: you decide, and you know exactly what to do on a bad day

Chronic Pain Pain to Prevent

Related Conditions

Chronic pain rarely travels alone.

Complex pain usually brings company. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Fibromyalgia

Widespread aching, sleep that never refreshes, and a brain one step behind.

Learn More 2

Nerve Pain

Burning, buzzing or numbness that follows a line instead of a joint.

Learn More 3

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Joints that move too far, slip out, and then hurt for days afterward.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for chronic pain.

It is real. Pain that lasts means a nervous system that has gotten better at producing pain signals, and that change is physical, and it is treatable. Nobody here is going to tell you to relax and wait it out. We find what your system is actually reacting to, then we teach you how to change it.

Not the way we dose it. Hurt does not always mean harm, and you will not be handed a generic exercise sheet and wished luck. We start below the level that provokes a flare, prove it is tolerable, then add a little at a time. You are one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist every visit, so the pace stays yours.

A full plan for chronic pain runs through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, and how long that takes depends on how long you’ve been dealing with it. Either way, you get a plan with an endpoint: you’ll always know which phase you’re in and what’s left, not 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

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So we know who to look for when you walk in.

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Motion Matters Physical Therapy and Wellness

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