What We Treat

Fibromyalgia treatment in North Liberty.

Pain everywhere, sleep that never counts, and a fog you cannot think your way out of. Fibromyalgia has real mechanisms behind it. A cause-first evaluation is where the answers start.

Widespread pain Fatigue and fog Tender everywhere Book My Free Consult

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like your day?

  • Waking up more tired than when you went to bed
  • Aching in places you never used, on a day you did nothing
  • Losing the word you were about to say, mid-sentence
  • A hug or a waistband that hurts far more than it should
  • Paying for one good day with two bad ones
  • A stack of normal test results, and still no explanation

Two or more? Waiting does not quiet this down. It gives the pattern more practice.

Why It Happens

Fibromyalgia is a volume problem, not a weakness problem.

Your muscles are not failing you. The system that processes pain signals is amplifying them. Ordinary input, a touch, a stretch, a long day on your feet, gets turned up before it ever reaches you. Broken sleep, stress and lost conditioning all push that volume higher.

So the evaluation looks at the whole loop instead of one sore spot. Where you actually lost strength and range. What your sleep is doing. Which activities you dropped, and in what order to get them back. Natalie Johnston is a Fellow in Pain Sciences and a Therapeutic Pain Specialist with 26 years of experience. 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.

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.

An older woman sitting on a sofa holding her shoulder in discomfort

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, dosed for a sensitive system.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like when your pain system runs loud.

Weeks 1–2

Pain

Bring the volume down.

Gentle manual work, breathing and honest pacing settle the system. Nothing gets pushed past your flare threshold.

Weeks 2–6

Prime

Restore motion, quietly.

Low-load mobility rebuilds range in the areas that stiffened up while you were busy protecting them.

Weeks 6–10

Perform

Add capacity you can keep.

Strength goes up in small, repeatable steps, so a good week stops costing you the two after it.

Weeks 10+

Prevent

Have a plan for the flare.

You leave knowing how to pace a big week, and how to walk a flare back down without losing the ground you gained.

Natalie understands that pain is multifactorial. She does a thorough evaluation and brings a toolbox full of evidence based techniques to improve pain and function.

Rachael D. · Verified Google review

Today: one good day gets paid for with two bad ones

The goal: good days that do not send you a bill afterward

Fibromyalgia Pain to Prevent

Related Conditions

Fibromyalgia usually brings company.

These show up alongside it again and again. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Chronic Pain

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

Learn More 2

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Bendy joints, easy injuries, and pain that lingers for days after.

Learn More 3

POTS Management Program

Standing up sends your heart racing and the room sideways.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for fibromyalgia.

Yes, when it is dosed for a sensitized system instead of pushed like a sports injury. That distinction is the whole thing. Natalie Johnston is a Fellow in Pain Sciences and a Therapeutic Pain Specialist, and Dr. Adam Janowski, PT, DPT, PhD, researched chronic pain and chronic fatigue syndromes at the University of Iowa. Fibromyalgia is not an unfamiliar chart here.

Then the dose was wrong, not you. We find the amount your system tolerates right now, stay under it on purpose, and build from there. If something provokes a flare, we adjust it at your next visit. You are one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist every visit, so nothing about your response gets missed.

A full plan for fibromyalgia 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.

Visit Us

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Motion Matters Physical Therapy and Wellness

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