How I actually think about the conditions I see most — not a diagnosis, and not a promise, just an honest look at what I'm assessing and why, condition by condition.
Head & Neck
Neck pain has a way of showing up in the middle of ordinary life — reaching for something on a shelf, checking your blind spot, waking up and realizing you can't turn your head the way you could yesterday. It's disorienting because the neck feels so central, and even a small restriction can make you feel oddly fragile.
Here's something that often surprises people: the real driver can be the low back and hips, not the neck itself. When the pelvis is out of balance or the low back isn't stabilizing well, the whole spine has to compensate to keep your eyes level and your balance centered — and the neck, being the most mobile part of that chain, can end up absorbing the bulk of that compensation. Other times, the dysfunction is genuinely local — real restriction or tension right in the neck and shoulders themselves. Figuring out which one is actually happening is the first thing I'm assessing.
I approach this the way I was trained to think about the body as a whole system — not neck problems and hip problems as separate categories, but one interconnected structure trying to stay balanced. That often means gentle joint mobilization through the low back and hips, sometimes craniosacral work to help the whole nervous system settle, and very little forceful work on the neck itself. I'm not fighting the restriction — I'm listening for where the body actually wants to release, and working with that.
Back to top ↑Headaches have a way of stealing the day out from under you — the light feels too bright, focusing at work takes real effort, and you find yourself pressing your fingers into your temples without even realizing you're doing it. It's exhausting in a way that's hard to explain to someone who doesn't get them.
Tension headaches especially tend to have a pattern I can actually work with: tight muscles at the base of the skull, a jaw that clenches without you noticing, shoulders that live up near your ears. Sometimes the pattern traces further down, into the upper back and even the ribs and breathing mechanics.
Craniosacral work is often central here — a light-touch approach that helps the tissues around the skull, neck, and spine release without forcing anything. I pair it with gentle work through the upper back and jaw, always working with the tension that's actually present rather than pushing through it. If the pattern keeps rebuilding itself session after session, that's useful information too — it tells us there's something else feeding it we should talk about.
Back to top ↑Migraines can be genuinely frightening, not just painful — the aura, the nausea, having to disappear into a dark room and cancel your day with no warning. I want to be upfront: manual therapy isn't a migraine treatment on its own, and I won't pretend otherwise.
What I can offer is this — a lot of migraine sufferers also carry real tension through the neck, jaw, and upper body, and that tension can be a genuine trigger or amplifier even when it's not the root medical cause. In session, I'm assessing whether restriction in the neck, cervical spine, or jaw seems connected to your pattern of episodes.
My approach here leans heavily on craniosacral work and gentle joint mobilization — low-force techniques that work with the nervous system rather than against it, which matters even more for a condition this sensitive to overstimulation. For some people, this meaningfully reduces frequency or intensity. For others, it tells us the driver is elsewhere, and that's useful too.
Back to top ↑Jaw pain has a way of intruding on everything — eating, talking, even just resting your face becomes something you're aware of. A lot of people carry real frustration by the time they get to me, especially if they've already tried a night guard or been told to "just relax the jaw" without much else offered.
Jaw tension rarely stays in the jaw. I'm usually finding related tightness through the neck and the muscles at the base of the skull, and often the low back and hips are part of the bigger pattern too — the whole body tends to hold tension in a connected way, not in isolated pockets.
This is delicate work, and I move slowly and check in constantly. I use gentle joint mobilization at the jaw itself alongside craniosacral and myofascial work through the neck and upper body — working with how much your tissue will actually allow that day, never forcing through guarding or pain. The goal is to loosen the whole pattern, not just push on a sore spot.
Back to top ↑Back & Core
Low back pain changes how you move through an entire day — getting out of bed becomes a calculated decision, lifting your kid or your groceries becomes something you brace for. It's exhausting to live cautiously in your own body.
The low back is a relay point. It absorbs whatever the hips aren't doing and whatever the core isn't stabilizing, and treating only the low back when it's doing someone else's job tends to bring relief that doesn't last. In assessment, I'm looking at hip mobility, how the core is engaging, old injuries that changed how someone moves, and posture habits from work or sport.
My approach draws on myofascial release and gentle joint mobilization through the hips and low back together, working with the tissue's own willingness to let go rather than forcing a stretch. This isn't about a session that feels good and fades by the weekend — it's about actually changing the pattern that's been loading your low back in the first place, a pattern I see constantly in Missoula skiers, climbers, and anyone who spends a winter shoveling and a summer gardening.
Back to top ↑Sciatic pain can be genuinely alarming — that shooting, radiating sensation down the leg makes people worry something is seriously wrong, and it can disrupt sleep, walking, even sitting through a meal. That fear is real, and I take it seriously.
The sciatic nerve can be irritated by the low back, by the deep hip rotators, or by a combination of both, and figuring out which is actually happening changes everything about how I approach it. In session, I'm assessing hip rotation, low back mobility, and specific positions that reproduce or ease your symptoms.
I work with gentle joint mobilization and myofascial release through the hip and low back, always working within what your nervous system will tolerate rather than pushing into irritation — this is not aggressive work. I want to be clear I'm not diagnosing nerve conditions; if something looks like it needs imaging or a physician's evaluation, I'll say so directly.
Back to top ↑Restricted ribs show up in quiet, easy-to-dismiss ways — a breath that never quite feels full, a posture that won't correct no matter how many times you remind yourself to stand up straight. People often don't realize how much this is costing them until it starts to ease.
I'm assessing how well your ribs actually move with a full breath, whether one side moves more freely than the other, and how that connects to your shoulders, upper back, and spine. Ribs that don't move well often show up alongside old injuries, or from years of guarded, shallow breathing patterns — the body protecting itself long after the original reason is gone.
This work is genuinely gentle — myofascial and craniosacral-influenced techniques that work with the rise and fall of your own breath rather than forcing the rib cage into a new position. When ribs start moving the way they're supposed to, people are often surprised by how much easier a full breath feels.
Back to top ↑Shoulder, Hip & Lower Body
Shoulder pain has a way of shrinking your world — reaching overhead, sleeping on that side, even putting on a jacket becomes something you brace for. It's a joint people don't realize how much they rely on until it's compromised.
Shoulders are complex joints with a lot of range of motion, which also means a lot of neighboring structures that can be the real source of a problem that shows up as shoulder pain. Just like the neck, the shoulder can end up compensating for restriction or imbalance lower down — in the low back and hips. But shoulder pain is just as often genuinely local — from an old injury, repetitive strain, or restriction right in the shoulder and surrounding muscles. I rarely stop my assessment at the shoulder itself, because I want to know which of these is actually happening.
My approach uses joint mobilization and myofascial release, working with the shoulder's available range rather than forcing past it, and I'm just as likely to spend time on your hips and low back as your shoulder if that's where the real restriction is holding things in place. This is a pattern I see often in Missoula paddlers and climbers, whose shoulders take on a lot of repetitive overhead load.
Back to top ↑Hip pain changes how you walk through the world in ways that are easy to underestimate — stairs become a negotiation, a long walk gets planned around rest points, and there's often a nagging worry that this is just what your body does now.
Hip pain rarely has one simple cause. Sometimes it traces up to the low back — an imbalance in the stabilizing muscles there that leaves the hip working overtime. Just as often it's connected to how you walk, which means the actual root can be down at the feet and ankles just as easily as up through the low back and spine. A hip that isn't rotating well can be the result of a gait pattern that started at the ground and worked its way up, or a stability issue that started above and worked its way down.
Because of that, my assessment doesn't stop at the hip — I'm looking at the whole chain, from your feet through your low back, to understand which direction the problem is actually coming from. Treatment follows what I find: sometimes hip-focused joint mobilization, sometimes work at the ankle or low back that changes the hip indirectly. I'm working with your body's actual pattern, not a standard hip protocol — and in a town full of trail runners and skiers logging big vertical, that pattern shows up a lot.
Back to top ↑Knee pain has a way of making you doubt your own body — stairs you've climbed a thousand times suddenly feel risky, and there's often a quiet fear that this means something is wearing out for good.
Knees take a lot of blame that isn't always theirs. The knee is a hinge sitting between two joints built for much more rotation — the hip above and the ankle below — and when either isn't moving well, the knee often absorbs the difference. I'm assessing the knee itself, but just as much the hip rotation and ankle mobility around it.
My work here uses joint mobilization and myofascial release at whichever point in the chain is actually restricted, working with the tissue rather than pushing the knee harder. The goal isn't just quieting the pain in the moment — it's changing the mechanics that put the knee under that load to begin with, which matters a lot for Missoula's trail runners and backcountry skiers putting real miles on their knees every season.
Back to top ↑Foot and ankle pain is easy to dismiss until it starts limiting things you didn't expect — the walk you used to take without thinking, standing through a full day at work, trusting your footing on uneven ground.
Feet and ankles are the foundation for how your entire body moves, and restriction here — from an old sprain, certain footwear, or just accumulated tension — can ripple all the way up through the knees, hips, and low back. A lot of people are surprised how much an old sprain from years ago is still shaping how they move today.
I use gentle joint mobilization through the ankle and foot, working with whatever range is actually available rather than forcing it, since this area often needs a patient, incremental approach rather than one big push. Restoring even a small amount of lost mobility here can change how the whole chain above it is loading — a common thread with river and trail work around Missoula, where uneven ground and old sprains add up over a season.
Back to top ↑Whole-Body & Performance
An injury doesn't just hurt in the moment — it changes your relationship with the activity you love, sometimes in ways that linger long after the tissue itself has healed. There's often a real grief in not trusting your body the way you used to on the trail, the river, the mountain.
A lot of the sports injuries I see aren't fresh; they're old injuries the body compensated around, and that compensation eventually causes a problem somewhere else. My assessment looks at the injury if it's recent, but just as much at how you're moving now — what's guarded, what's overworking, what's stopped participating the way it should.
I work with joint mobilization and myofascial release, always within what your body is actually ready for rather than pushing toward an arbitrary timeline. The goal is getting you back to the thing you love with a body that's actually ready for it — not just quiet enough to try again and re-injure the same spot.
Back to top ↑Overuse injuries have a particular kind of frustration to them — there's no single moment you can point to, just a slow accumulation that eventually becomes impossible to ignore, and often a nagging guilt that you should have stopped sooner.
Whether it's from repetitive work tasks, a sport, or daily habits, the tissue that's irritated is rarely the whole story. I'm assessing what's actually being overused, and why — is a muscle group compensating for one that's not doing its job? Overuse injuries often trace back to an imbalance somewhere nearby, not just "too much" of a single activity.
My approach addresses the irritated tissue with myofascial work, but the more important piece is usually the joint mobilization and whole-body assessment that uncovers what's actually driving the overuse — because without changing that, the same pattern tends to resurface somewhere else.
Back to top ↑Living with chronic pain wears on you in ways that go beyond the physical — the planning around it, the explaining it to people who don't quite understand, the grief for the version of life you had before. I don't take that lightly, and I won't pretend one session changes it.
Chronic pain is rarely one simple thing. Long-standing pain often involves multiple contributing factors layered on top of each other over months or years — old injuries, compensation patterns, guarding, sometimes stress and sleep too. My approach is patient and layered, the same way the pain usually is.
I lean on the gentlest tools I have — craniosacral work, myofascial release, careful joint mobilization — because bodies dealing with chronic pain often need to be worked with, not pushed on. I'm not looking for one dramatic fix. I'm looking for the clearest place to start, and building from there, adjusting as we learn more about what your body actually needs.
Back to top ↑Tension that won't let go despite everything you've tried — stretching, massage, telling yourself to just relax — starts to feel less like a physical problem and more like something wrong with you. It isn't. It just means we haven't found what it's actually protecting yet.
Muscle tension that doesn't resolve on its own usually means the tension isn't really the problem. It's a symptom of something the body is doing for a reason: guarding an old injury, compensating for a joint that isn't moving well, or holding a stress pattern that hasn't had anywhere else to go.
I use myofascial release to work with the tension rather than force it out, following the direction the tissue actually wants to move rather than pushing against the grain. If it comes back the same way every time, that's not a failure of the technique — it means we're missing the underlying reason, and that's usually where I want to focus next.
Back to top ↑Losing range of motion happens so gradually that people often don't notice until it's significant — reaching behind your back, turning to check a mirror, kneeling down to tie a shoe. You adapt around it quietly, and eventually stop remembering it used to be different.
My assessment looks at where mobility is actually limited, compares one side to the other, and tries to understand why — is it the joint itself, the surrounding tissue, or a compensation pattern built up around it? That distinction changes how I approach it entirely.
I use gentle joint mobilization, working with the joint's own available range rather than forcing past its current limit — restoring range of motion isn't about aggressive stretching, it's about patiently expanding what the tissue will allow, session by session. Bodies are more adaptable than people expect, and a lot of what looks like "just how I am now" responds better than assumed.
Back to top ↑A body that's been compensating for years doesn't always feel wrong — it just feels normal, until the workaround itself becomes the next problem, and then you're left wondering how something that felt fine suddenly doesn't.
Movement dysfunction is my way of describing those quiet compensation patterns. The body is remarkably good at finding a way to keep moving even when something isn't working right. When I assess it, I'm watching how you actually move, not just asking where it hurts — where does the movement look effortful, where is one side doing more work than the other.
This is where the whole-body, osteopathically-influenced way I was trained to think really matters — the body as one interconnected system, not a collection of separate parts. I use joint mobilization and myofascial release to work with the pattern I find, helping your system move the way it was actually built to rather than fighting the compensation directly.
Back to top ↑Pregnancy and postpartum recovery ask a lot of your body, often while you're also caring for a newborn and running on very little sleep. Discomfort during this time deserves real care, not a dismissive "that's just pregnancy" — and it also isn't something I treat the same way I'd treat an unrelated injury.
My approach is adapted to where you are — early pregnancy looks different from late pregnancy, and postpartum recovery is its own process with its own timeline. I'm assessing what's actually changed for your body — shifting posture, loosened ligaments, how weight is carried and how the core and pelvic floor are functioning.
This work stays gentle throughout, using craniosacral and myofascial techniques that work with your body's current state rather than any generic template, and I check in constantly rather than assuming what's comfortable. If you're pregnant or postpartum, I'd rather have an honest conversation about what I can offer at your specific stage than apply a one-size-fits-all approach.
Back to top ↑Reach out directly to ask questions or schedule your first visit — call or text to get started.