Patient Success Stories

When Roger Gayer came to ARC Physical Therapy in Elmhurst two months ago in April, it was after an injury, and subsequent pain that sidelined his renovation goals.

“I think it was something that was coming on for a while. It started as just an ache in my lower back and then one day I was moving some furniture and something happened. It got bad right away,” said Gayer.

After going to his primary care provider, he got a referral to see a physical therapist. Coincidently, his wife is also a physical therapist and suggested he see someone at ARC. His first appointment, he described, as really successful, even after just one Counterstrain treatment with Lauren. Roger said that she looked at him and saw that his spine was crooked right away.

When Richard Pearlman, a long-time Northside Chicago native, needed to see a physical therapist after experiencing two life-threatening brain aneurysms two years ago, he did what most people would do: he asked for recommendations. Luckily, both is wife, a retired occupational therapist and daughter, a collegiate basketball player, told him to see Kevin Cronin at ARC Physical Therapy.

Prior to his treatment journey, both his wife and adult daughter had different ailments that needed physical therapy and they were both in agreement that after two months of hospitalization at two different facilities, including the Shirley Ryan Institute, formally the Rehab Institute of Chicago, for both in and out-patient care, Richard’s post-aneurysm care would be an ideal fit or ARC.

Upon visiting ARC Physical Therapy, Rosanna Ridgeway experienced significant issues with neuropathy in her leg. While initially beginning and staying consistent with traditional physical therapy, after a few months she wasn’t noticing any positive changes regarding her condition. As a result, her physical therapist recommended ARC Physical Therapy, and noted ‘she recommended a previous patient visit ARC following initial failed traditional courses of recovery, and the patient saw great success.’

From the time he was a young man working at NBC 5 Chicago to where he is today, the owner of a long-time Chicago area advertising agency, Gary Safron has always weighted decisions as rational versus irrational. It’s been decades since he started his career in what makes an ad connect with people. But even now, as he describes how he’s applied this thought process to everything else in his life, he said it was both the rational, and best choice to go to ARC Physical Therapy to get his pain treated. 

Anne Sharfman didn’t know that when she first came to ARC Physical Therapy at the suggestion of her brother, that it would lead to so much more than just a fixed shoulder. Back in 2018, as a patient, curious about the treatment her physical therapist, Alison Brown Ferguson, was talking about – Counterstrain. At the time, she’d not heard of it, but at her first appointment, its benefits were being laid out, including the fact that she didn’t need to do any kind of strenuous workouts that she felt may contribute to her already uncomfortable shoulder.

Toe walking is a distinct pattern of walking in which only the balls and toes of the feet connect with the ground, but the heels do not. For some, this is a lifelong affliction, for others, they’ve gotten treatment of some kind, with varying levels of success.

Last year in 2022, 16 year old Addison Tjaden traveled with her mother from Central Illinois for a consult with ARC Physical Therapy in Elmhurst for her toe walking. She’d been afflicted with the ailment since she was a baby and by the time she made the trek for a second opinion with us, her doctors were talking about extreme measures in regard to long term treatment.

We’re all getting older, but we don’t need to accept chronic pain with our progression in age.

Melissa Kennedy came to the Loop location to get pain relief treatment for a long-time ache in her left lower knee. Right before her 40th birthday, she felt that the pain she’d had in her leg since she was 20 years old would be with her for many more milestone birthdays to come. She assumed that this was just part of getting older and thing were just going to get more and more stiff and uncomfortable with age, or have to consider getting a knee replacement someday.

No one knows exactly how the rotator cuff was torn, but it was now, a big problem. After going to another physical therapist for her treatment, Evelyn Miller came to ARC in the hopes of getting the pain in her right arm taken care of. Her journey from when she first noticed the pain, to where she is now has had its ups and downs, but as she prepares to have surgery in a few months, she has had a lot of success with our team.