Chronic Pain

Pain that lasts more than 3 months is considered chronic pain. And the body starts to treat it differently than a new injury. But let's be clear, chronic pain is simply how long you have been in pain. Not how long you will be in pain.

Chronic Pain - the Physical Therapy Side

Musculoskeletal Care

We assess your joints, muscles, and nerve function to look for patterns that may reinforce your pain. We use this information to provide manual therapy and hands on care to reduce pain and improve function. We follow this with therapeutic exercises, with the goal of building endurance and staying pain free, and improving your overall functio. When function improves, daily tasks become easier, and true self-care becomes possible.

Lifestyle Coaching

Within the scope of physical therapy, we take time to ask you about lifestyle habits that scientifically are known to impact pain:

Sleep quality, nutrition, social activity, stress management, physical activity. All of these coalesce into pain management. Our goal is to truly listen to you and provide thoughtful suggestions to improve in these areas. And if it's outside of our scope? We'll help you find the right person.

Goal Setting

This looks different when you've been in pain for a long time. The main goal is always to get you out of pain, but that can seem impossible when you're in a flare. We help you break down your goals to make it easier to see progress. We help you notice positive changes. We adjust our plans based on your responses to treatment. This is how we build momentum and motivation together.

Comfort Care

Physical Therapy has gotten the reputation of just "massage and exercise". We go beyond. Our hands-on techniques are about ensuring your body can do what you need it to do, exercise is used to reinforce that ability and get you back to your life. But we also know aches and pains are frustrating. That's why we include ultrasound, paraffin wax treatments, TENS, moist hot packs, ice, in each session to help you leave feeling calm and with less pain.

Chronic Pain Physical Therapy

What is our process behind caring for your pain?

We are most suited for basic nerve pain such as carpal tunnel, thoracic outlet syndrome, sciatica, low back or neck pain. It begins with an evaluation: We measure how well your joints move, how the muscles feel when you move and at rest, we measure your strength, endurance. We start to get an understanding of your daily routines, how you feel about your pain, and your goals. We will ask about your habits around sleep, food, hydration; we'll ask about your support system.

We use this information to set a Plan of Care: part of this is what we can do for you. We use manual therapy and tools to help reduce pain and improve your function, to help you see recovery is possible. Then we also teach movement and exercises that you can do here, and at home, so your recovery continues even when you're not here and you feel empowered in your life. We help you modify activities that are hard to do so this injury doesn't slow you down. We provide suggestions to improve sleep quality, nutrition, and more so your body has the tools to heal.

We help you see your progress every step of the way. We reassess and fine tune every step of the way.

Because when we do our job right - you know you're better for life.

Patient First Care

Your experience matters. Your goals matter. Your care matters.

We're here to support you and create a caring environment backed by evidence-based skills to give you your best results.