Made Strong Physical Therapy & Wellness · Westminster, CO
Pain that keeps showing up
shouldn’t keep you from showing up.
You’re not ready to stop skiing, running, climbing, or lifting. You just need someone who can actually figure out what’s going on and build a plan around what you want to keep doing.
Chronic pain is not a personality trait or a life sentence. It’s a signal from a nervous system that has learned to be protective, often longer and louder than the original injury warrants. And in most cases, there is meaningful work that can be done regardless of how long you’ve been dealing with it.
What usually gets in the way isn’t the pain itself. It’s being told the imaging explains everything. Being handed a generic program that doesn’t account for who you are or what you actually do. Feeling rushed through appointments where no one has time to really understand the full picture. Sound familiar?
At Made Strong, chronic and complex pain gets the same depth of attention as any acute sports injury. Because you’re still an active person with things you want to do, and that deserves more than a standard protocol and a handout.
“I have had chronic back pain for 15 years. She did a full analysis of how I move and explained to me how chronic pain works. She found a way to calm down my anxiety and explain in terms I understood what was going on.”
What we treat
Chronic back and SI pain
Long-term low back pain, SI joint dysfunction, disc herniations, and degenerative changes that haven’t responded to previous care. Including cases where you’ve been told surgery is the only option.
Persistent knee and hip pain
Ongoing pain from tendinopathy, osteoarthritis, post-surgical presentations, and cases where the original injury “healed” but the pain didn’t go away.
Chronic neck and shoulder pain
Tension, cervical radiculopathy, shoulder impingement, and pain patterns that keep returning no matter what you try.
Active adults managing pain around sport
Skiers, runners, climbers, and cyclists who have been modifying their activity around pain rather than addressing it. You shouldn’t have to negotiate with your body indefinitely.
Post-surgical complexity
Persistent pain or limited function following surgery, including cases where standard post-op PT didn’t get you where you needed to be.
Sciatica and nerve pain
Radiating symptoms, numbness, and presentations involving spinal involvement that require careful load management and movement retraining.
Fibromyalgia and widespread pain
Complex, multi-site pain presentations that require a nervous system-informed approach and a clinician who takes your experience seriously.
What the approach looks like
Chronic pain treatment here is built around three things: understanding what’s actually driving your pain, educating you about it in a way that actually helps, and building your body’s capacity to do the things you care about. That’s not a passive process.
A thorough evaluation that goes beyond where it hurts. How you move, what you load, what you believe about your pain, and what life stressors are in the mix. All of it is relevant.
Education as part of the treatment. Understanding what chronic pain actually is changes how people experience it. This isn’t optional background — it’s clinical work that makes everything else more effective.
Progressive loading, not avoidance. Avoiding movement teaches your body that movement is dangerous. Building load tolerance gradually and carefully is how function actually returns.
Manual therapy and dry needling when the tissue needs direct intervention before exercise can do its job. Hands-on treatment for guarding, tension, and restrictions that are getting in the way.
Real programming between sessions. You don’t come in for treatment and go home to wait. You leave with a plan that continues the work independently, built around your schedule and your equipment.
Honest expectations. Some presentations resolve completely. Others improve significantly but need ongoing management. You’ll always know where you actually are and what the realistic path forward looks like.
A note on imaging findings: Disc herniations, arthritis, and degenerative changes sound definitive, but they often aren’t. Many people with significant findings on MRI have little pain, and many people with severe pain have unremarkable imaging. Your diagnosis is a starting point, not a ceiling. What matters is what your body can do and what it can learn to do.
What clients say
“I have had chronic back pain for 15 years. She did a full analysis of how I move and explained to me how chronic pain works. She gave me PT exercises which actually worked, by the way. Second injury, I heard a pop in my knee while skiing. She tested all the ligaments, found a way to calm down my anxiety, and explained in terms I understood what was going on. Dr. Jen absolutely cares about people getting back to the activities we love.”
“The short story is, I had a great experience with Jennifer and she helped resolve my chronic pain. She’s not the same as those PT offices where you spend 45 minutes of your 1 hour session stretching by yourself.
The long story: I’ve had chronic low back and buttock pain since I was 16, after a disc injury from deadlifting. In the last few years the pain started to interfere with daily life. I went through the whole process: PCP, PT referral, ortho, another PT referral. If you’ve had back pain before this should sound painfully familiar. The difference from corporate PT is night and day. She sees how you walk, how you bend, and works around your body. It’s not a cookie cutter routine for back pain. I got evaluated, did my exercises, and I feel good again. I’ve had PTs tell me I might need a fusion when I’m 40 but now I’m looking forward to skiing through the Alps when I graduate.”
The long story: I’ve had chronic low back and buttock pain since I was 16, after a disc injury from deadlifting. In the last few years the pain started to interfere with daily life. I went through the whole process: PCP, PT referral, ortho, another PT referral. If you’ve had back pain before this should sound painfully familiar. The difference from corporate PT is night and day. She sees how you walk, how you bend, and works around your body. It’s not a cookie cutter routine for back pain. I got evaluated, did my exercises, and I feel good again. I’ve had PTs tell me I might need a fusion when I’m 40 but now I’m looking forward to skiing through the Alps when I graduate.”
“I have been working with Jen for over a year now and am so grateful to have found her. I have looked for years for someone with her special skill set and have been disappointed repeatedly. I have fibromyalgia and want to be as fit and flexible as possible given my challenges. Somehow, Jen has a very deep and compassionate understanding of all the dynamics of chronic illness with pain, plus a sophisticated PT tool set on how to approach movement and strength building for someone like me. I am so relieved by the questions she asks, and her positive, behavioral approach to PT.”
Frequently asked questions
I’ve tried PT before and it didn’t help. Why would this be different?
This is the most common thing people say when they reach out. Standard PT protocols, especially generic high-rep exercises and modality-heavy treatment, often aren’t calibrated for longstanding presentations. The approach here starts with actually understanding your specific situation: your history, your beliefs about your pain, how you load, and what you’ve already tried. If something isn’t working, we change it rather than repeating it.
My imaging shows disc herniations or arthritis. Can PT still help?
In most cases, yes. Structural findings are common in people with no pain at all. The relationship between what shows up on imaging and what you actually feel is far more complex than it looks. There is almost always a meaningful contribution from how you move, how you load, and what your nervous system has learned, all of which PT can address directly.
How long does it take to see results with chronic pain?
Longer than acute pain, and with a less linear trajectory. Most people notice meaningful change within 6 to 12 weeks, though full resolution takes longer when it happens. Timeline depends on how long the pain has been present, what’s driving it, and how consistently the programming is followed between sessions. You’ll get an honest picture of where you are at every stage.
Can I still train or do my sport while we work on this?
Usually yes, and often that’s part of the plan. Complete rest is rarely the right answer for chronic pain. The goal is helping you understand what loads are productive, what’s making things worse, and how to keep doing the things that matter to you while we address what’s driving the pain. Modification, not elimination.
Can you help if I’m trying to avoid surgery?
This is one of the most valuable things PT can do. For many presentations, surgery is one option among several, and a well-executed conservative rehab program often changes the picture significantly. Whether surgery is ultimately the right call is a decision for you and your surgeon, but PT should almost always come before that decision is finalized.
Do you offer virtual care for chronic pain?
Yes. Virtual sessions work well for programming, movement coaching, and education. Some presentations benefit from in-person assessment and hands-on treatment first, but many clients work primarily or entirely virtually with strong outcomes. It’s worth discussing what makes the most sense for your specific situation.
You don’t have to keep managing around it.
A free 15-minute discovery call is a low-pressure way to talk through what’s going on and whether Made Strong is the right fit. No commitment, no sales pitch.
Book a free discovery callWestminster, CO · Also available virtually · Cash-based · No referral needed