Struggling with pain, stiffness, or trouble moving throughout your day can impact every part of your life—how you work, move, sleep, and feel. Fortunately, it’s not a challenge you have to face alone.
Whether you need to recover from a sudden injury, a recent surgery, or a long-term chronic issue, our physical therapist at the Foot Center of New York (FCNY) is here to provide answers, relief, and guidance for your next steps forward.
Whole Care for Your Whole Body
At FCNY, we treat a wide range of conditions that affect how your body moves and feels. While we’re experts in the foot and lower legs, our physical therapist care for the whole body—because everything is connected.
If your pain started in your foot, back, or somewhere in between, we help you identify the sources and provide a path toward healing.
Head-to-Toe Pain
Pain can show up almost anywhere, from your neck and shoulders down to your knees and ankles. It might be sharp, dull, constant, or only show up when you move. In many cases, pain in one part of the body is caused by a problem somewhere else. For example, a stiff back can affect the way you walk, leading to foot or knee pain.
Our physical therapist assesses your posture, alignment, and muscle strength to get a full picture of your pain. Then we use methods like stretching, hands-on therapy, strengthening exercises, and posture training to relieve your pain and prevent it from coming back.
Post-Surgical Recovery
If you’ve recently had foot, ankle, knee, or other orthopedic surgery, physical therapy plays a big role in your recovery.
Our team works with your surgeon’s guidelines to help reduce swelling, regain motion, and slowly rebuild your strength and balance. Treatment could include gentle strengthening exercises, stretches, walking re-training, and pain-relieving modalities like ultrasound or electrical stimulation.
Sprains and Injuries
Sprains, pulled muscles, and other soft tissue injuries are very common, usually from sports, falls, or overuse. These injuries can often cause swelling, bruising, and painful movement. Without proper care, they can heal poorly or lead to long-term instability.
We focus on reducing inflammation early on, then guide you through safe, progressive exercises to strengthen the injured area, improve your movement and flexibility, and prevent future injuries.
Tendonitis and Soft Tissue Pain
Tendonitis happens when a tendon—the tissue that connects muscle to bone—gets irritated or inflamed, usually from overuse or repetitive motion. You may feel pain, tenderness, or stiffness in areas like your shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and heels.
Tendonitis is often treated with stretching, soft tissue massage, strengthening, exercises, and pain management techniques like cold and heat therapy, ultrasound, or iontophoresis (a form of medication delivery through the skin using a mild electrical current).
Osteoarthritis and Joint Pain
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common type of arthritis and leading cause of disability in older adults. It impacts and damages the entire joint, including weight-bearing joints like the knees, hips, and spine. Damage can get worse over time and usually results in pain, stiffness, and swelling.
Physical therapy can’t reverse osteoarthritis, but it can make daily movement easier and less painful. Treatment may include gentle range-of-motion exercises, low-impact strength training, and guidance for managing your OA.
Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathies
Diabetic patients with high blood sugar levels may develop nerve damage in their feet and lower legs, known as diabetic peripheral neuropathy. This condition can lead to numbness, tingling, burning sensations, or loss of balance.
If you’re struggling with these symptoms, physical therapy can help you maintain good circulation, strength, and general foot health awareness. Treatments may include balance and strength exercises, gait training, and stretches to improve your range of motion.
Gait and Balance Disorders
If you feel unsteady on your feet, walk with a limp, or have had a recent fall, you may be suffering from a gait or balance disorder. Gait and balance issues can occur for many reasons, including injury, muscle weakness, neurological conditions, or aging.
Your physical therapist can perform a full walking and balance assessment to find out what’s causing your balance issues, then create a personalized plan to treat it. Treatment could include strengthening and coordination exercises, balance work using tools like wobble boards, and functional movement practices to help you walk with greater ease and safety.
Functional Mobility Limitations
Sometimes it’s not pain that brings people to physical therapy. It’s the feeling of being limited in your movement. Maybe the stairs are hard to climb or getting out of a chair takes more effort. You may feel slower, weaker, or less steady than you used to.
Physical therapy can help restore your independence, step by step. You’ll work on full-body mobility, strength, and control using exercises and techniques that help you move through your daily life with more freedom and less effort.
What to Expect on Your Visit
Starting physical therapy can come with a lot of questions. What will happen? Will it hurt? How long will it take to feel better? Our physical therapist can help take the guesswork out of the process.
From the moment you walk in, our focus is on making you feel comfortable, cared for, and in control of your journey. We’re not just here to treat your pain. We’re here to partner with you in healing, every step of the way.
PLEASE NOTE: A referral is needed for physical therapy. Make sure that you bring your referral along, or that your doctor has sent it to us. We cannot treat you without a referral.
Your First Visit
On your first visit, you’ll meet with our licensed physical therapist for a full evaluation. We’ll talk through your symptoms, review your medical history, and do a movement assessment to understand how your body is functioning. Then, we’ll create a personalized treatment plan for you.
Your Returning Visits
Each following session is focused on progress. You’ll continue working one-on-one with your physical therapist, building strength, reducing pain, and gaining more confidence with every visit. We’ll track your goals and adjust your plan as you improve.
Treatments and Therapies
Every treatment at FCNY is chosen with purpose—to help you heal safely, move more comfortably, and regain control over your daily life. We know that no two bodies are the same, which is why we create a custom therapy plan based on your unique condition, goals, and lifestyle.
Our physical therapy team combines hands-on techniques with advanced tools and evidence-based practices to treat a wide range of pain, injuries, and movement problems. Some of our therapies and treatments include:
- Therapeutic Massage and Myofascial Release: These gentle hands-on techniques reduce tension, ease sore muscles, and improve circulation for faster healing.
- Joint Manipulation and Active Release Techniques: Using targeted movements and exercises, we help you restore proper joint function and reduce stiffness or limited mobility.
- Therapeutic Exercise: Customized exercises designed for your body and your goals can help you improve strength, flexibility, and movement control.
- Kinesiology Taping: This flexible, elastic tape helps relieve pain by stimulating your muscles to contract, causing them to produce movement, sustain body posture, and help stabilize your joints.
- Ultrasound: High-frequency soundwaves are used to penetrate deep into your muscles to improve blood flow and accelerate tissue repair.
- Electrical Stimulation: Also known as E-stim, this modality involves placing pads over a targeted area and gradually applying a mild electrical current to trigger muscle contractions, promote circulation, and reduce pain.
- Iontophoresis: This is a form of electrical stimulation that’s used to administer medication through the skin.
- Paraffin Wax Therapy: Warm wax is used as a form of heating therapy to soothe stiff or aching joints, which is especially helpful for arthritis or chronic foot and hand pain.
Schedule Your Consultation Today
If something feels off, don’t wait. Trust your instincts and trust your feet—they’re too important to ignore.
Our team is ready to help you move forward with confidence, comfort, and care that’s always one step ahead!
