What We Treat

CRPS treatment in North Liberty.

Burning pain far out of proportion to the injury. A limb that cannot stand a sock. Complex regional pain syndrome is real, it is understood, and how it gets treated matters enormously.

Burning pain Touch sensitivity Color and temperature changes Book My Free Consult

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like what you are living with?

  • Pain so out of proportion that describing it makes you sound dramatic
  • A bedsheet, a sock or a breeze that is unbearable on that limb
  • Watching the limb change color or temperature while you sit there
  • Swelling, sweating, or hair and nail changes on one side only
  • Holding the limb still and out of the way all day without noticing
  • Being told the original injury healed months ago, as if that settled it

Two or more? With CRPS, the sooner someone takes it seriously, the more you have to work with.

Why It Happens

CRPS is a signaling problem, not an imaginary one.

Something happened first. A fracture, a sprain, a surgery, sometimes almost nothing. The tissue healed. The alarm system did not switch back off. Nerves, blood flow and the immune response stay locked in a loop, and the brain’s map of that limb goes blurry. That is why a light touch can burn, and why the limb can feel like it belongs to someone else.

So the evaluation is careful, cause-first, and led by someone who works in this territory. Natalie Johnston is a Fellow in Pain Sciences and a Therapeutic Pain Specialist with 24 years of experience, and complex and chronic pain is her stated specialty. We find what your limb tolerates today, what it is guarding, and where the map has gone quiet. Then we work at that edge, never past it.

You have already read everything, and you have probably already been somewhere that pushed too hard, too fast. That is exactly the kind of patient who does well here.

Close-up of two hands with red, swollen, inflamed skin

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, and none of them push through it.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for a limb that is stuck on alarm.

Weeks 1–2

Pain

Make touch tolerable again.

Desensitization and gentle hands-on care start where your limb can actually cope, not where a protocol says it should be.

Weeks 2–6

Prime

Redraw the map.

Graded motor imagery, mirror work and small ranges of motion give the brain clear signals from that limb again.

Weeks 6–10

Perform

Put the limb back to work.

Weight bearing and real use return in graded steps, so function grows without tripping the alarm.

Weeks 10+

Prevent

Know your flare plan cold.

You leave able to spot an early flare and walk it back down yourself, using a plan you have already practiced here.

Natalie knows her stuff! She understands how painful works, how it affects your body and life. She knows how to help you help yourself to get your life back.

Karmen W. · Verified Google review

Today: even a sleeve on that limb is more than you can take

The goal: more use of it, fewer flares, and a limb that feels like yours

CRPS Pain to Prevent

Related Conditions

CRPS is one branch of a bigger family.

Sensitized nerves and guarded limbs show up under other names too. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Nerve Pain

Burning, buzzing or numbness that follows a nerve, not a joint.

Learn More 2

Chronic Pain

Pain that outlasted the injury, and nobody has explained why.

Learn More 3

Post-Operative Rehab & Pain Management

Recovery after surgery, guided so pain does not set up camp.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for CRPS.

Aggressive therapy can absolutely flare CRPS, so that fear is legitimate and we treat it as legitimate. We go the other direction. We find what your limb tolerates today, work just under that line, and change the dose the moment it is too much. You are one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist every visit, so nobody is guessing at your tolerance.

We are not going to promise you that. CRPS is a condition you learn to manage, and management can look like a great deal: more use of the limb, flares that are shorter and further apart, sleep back, and a clear understanding of what your body is doing. That is what we build toward, and we say so up front.

A full plan for CRPS runs through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, and how long that takes depends on how long the limb has been guarded. 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.

Visit Us

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Motion Matters Physical Therapy and Wellness

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