What We Treat

Chronic Pain Treatment in Lakewood.

It’s been going on long enough that you stopped bringing it up. The injury healed and the pain didn’t. There’s a mechanism behind that, it’s well understood, and a cause-first evaluation is where it starts.

Pain after healing Flare-ups Nerve sensitivity Talk to a Specialist

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like you?

  • Waking up already sore, before the day has given you a reason
  • Pain that outlasted the injury everybody said would heal by now
  • A good week you don’t quite trust, because you’ve had good weeks before
  • Flare-ups that arrive with the weather, a bad night’s sleep, or nothing at all
  • Ordinary touch or light pressure that lands as way too much
  • Cancelling on people quietly, so nobody has to hear about it again

Two or more? Keep reading.

Why It Happens

Your pain is real. It just isn’t a damage report anymore.

Pain is an alarm system, and it’s supposed to switch off once the tissue heals. Sometimes it stays switched on. The nerves carrying the signal get more sensitive, the spinal cord and brain turn the volume up, and it takes less and less to set the whole thing off. That’s why light pressure can hurt, and why a flare-up can show up with no new injury behind it.

Other things keep feeding it. Poor sleep and constant stress change the chemistry your body uses to damp pain down. Guarded posture and the movements you’ve been avoiding leave muscles weak and joints stiff, which hands the alarm more to react to. Inflammation and the weather and what you ate get blamed, and sometimes they are part of it.

The mix is different in every person, so the plan starts with a cause-first evaluation. What’s sensitive, what’s weak, what’s stiff, and what your days actually look like. You’ve spent years managing everybody else’s appointments and everybody else’s symptoms. This one is yours.

A licensed physical therapist talking through a patient’s chronic pain history during an evaluation

The Honest Truth

Pain that stays gets good at staying.

If you keep waiting

  • The longer the alarm runs, the less it takes to set it off
  • You avoid more movements, so more movements become the ones that hurt
  • Sleep, mood and energy get pulled in, and each one makes the pain louder

If you start this week

  • You get an explanation that actually fits your pain, instead of a shrug
  • Movement comes back at a dose your system will accept, not all at once
  • You get a plan with an endpoint, and your physician stays in the loop on medication

Nobody regrets starting too early. Plenty of people wish they hadn’t waited.

How We Fix It

The same four phases. Built for pain that stayed.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for chronic pain.

Phase One

Pain

Turn the volume down.

Myofascial release, gentle nerve gliding and calming modalities take enough edge off that moving becomes possible again.

Phase Two

Prime

Give the system something safe to do.

Low-impact movement and range work, kept under the level that triggers a flare, so your body relearns that motion isn’t a threat.

Phase Three

Perform

Build capacity you can keep.

Strengthening and neuromuscular retraining add load in steps small enough to hold, so tolerance grows instead of spiking and crashing.

Phase Four

Prevent

Hold the ground you took.

A flare-up plan you can run yourself, sleep and stress habits addressed, ergonomics at work and at home. That’s the endpoint, not another appointment.

Related Conditions

Pain rarely stays in one place.

A sensitized system rarely keeps to one spot. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Fibromyalgia

Widespread ache and fatigue most people around you cannot see.

Learn More 2

Back Pain & Sciatica

Bracing on the counter just to stand up straight in the morning.

Learn More 3

Headaches

The one that starts at the base of your skull and owns the rest of your day.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for chronic pain.

You don’t have to start there. California’s Direct Access law lets you begin with a licensed physical therapist for up to 45 days or 12 visits, whichever comes first, before a physician has to sign off. With pain this persistent, a scan usually shows the same ordinary changes most people your age have, so it rarely explains the pain on its own. If something in your evaluation belongs with a physician, we’ll say so, and we coordinate with whoever manages your medication.

Not the way we do it. Flare-ups usually come from too much too soon, so we start under your current limit and add slowly from there. Some sessions ask a little of you, and a little discomfort along the way is normal. A sharp jump is not, and it’s information we use to adjust the next one. A licensed physical therapist sets the dose with you at every visit. Nothing gets pushed on you.

You get a plan with an endpoint, so you always know which phase you’re in and what’s left. As a general guideline, not a guarantee, 2–3 visits a week for 4–6 weeks is what gets the most out of a plan, and sessions run 30–60 minutes. On cost: we accept 14 insurance plans, Medicare included, and we check your benefits before you start so nothing lands as a surprise.

Book Your Visit

Ready when you are.

Request a time and a real person calls you back during business hours. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.

  • Hours Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM
  • (562) 512-3320 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
  • No doctor’s referral needed to start

We call back during business hours, Monday to Friday

Step 1 of 5

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

Visit Us

Care this good, this close.

The PT People

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