Mike Giles is a physical therapist at Physio+, based in Lindale. Mike earned a Doctor of Physical Therapy from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in 2022, trained in dry needling through the American Academy of Manipulative Therapy, and joined Physio+ in 2024. The cases Mike asks for are Parkinson's disease, cervical radiculopathy (a pinched nerve in the neck), and ankles that keep rolling, treated with manual therapy, dry needling, and therapeutic exercise.
Three cases, on purpose: Parkinson's disease, a pinched nerve in the neck, and an ankle that keeps rolling. They look unrelated. Each one is a problem of control that gets worse when nobody trains it directly.
Parkinson's disease changes how big, how fast, and how steadily a person moves. Steps shorten, turns take more of them, and getting out of a chair starts to need a second try. Exercise is one of the best supported treatments available for it, and the useful kind is specific: large amplitude movement practice, walking and turning drills, balance work that is actually hard, and strength for the legs that do the standing up. Mike builds that into a plan a patient can keep doing at home, because the benefit depends on keeping it up. The background on balance and falls lives on the balance and vestibular page.
Cervical radiculopathy is the clinical name for a pinched nerve in the neck: pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness that travels down the arm, often worse than the neck pain itself. Most cases improve with conservative care. The work is finding which positions calm the arm symptoms and which provoke them, then using manual therapy, nerve mobility, and strengthening to widen the calm range week by week. Weakness that keeps getting worse, or trouble with balance and hand coordination, changes the plan and gets referred out. More on the neck pain page.
Recurrent ankle instability is what often follows a sprain that never got rehabbed. Up to 40 percent of people who sprain an ankle go on to have it give way again and again. Rest lets the ligaments heal. It does not bring back the balance and reaction time the sprain took away, and that is what Mike trains: single leg balance, calf and hip strength, then hops, landings, and changes of direction until the ankle stops being the thing you think about. More on the foot and ankle page.
The relationship comes first, then the whole picture. Mike's own description of the approach is to establish the relationship with the patient and take a comprehensive look at every factor that led to the condition, not only the spot that hurts.
In practice that means the first visit asks about more than the complaint. How someone sleeps, what their day asks of their body, what they have already tried, and what they are afraid will happen all shape the plan. A stiff neck in someone who drives for a living and a stiff neck in someone who just started lifting are different problems with the same name.
The tools are the ones Mike lists first: manual therapy, dry needling, and therapeutic exercise. Hands on work and needling are there to make a guarded area willing to move. Dry needling puts a thin monofilament needle into a tight, irritable muscle to drop its tone quickly; what it feels like and who it suits is on the dry needling page, and the hands on side is covered under manual therapy. Exercise is what makes the change last, so it takes up more of the plan as the weeks go on.
The case Mike is proudest of involved a patient past 90 who got back to the basics of daily life and avoided the kind of fall that is life threatening at that age.
Basic daily activities are the ordinary list: getting out of bed and out of a chair, dressing, bathing, walking to the kitchen and back. When those start to slip, the risk is not only independence. A fall at that age can end in a broken hip, a hospital stay, and a much smaller life afterward. Keeping someone on their feet and doing those things safely is some of the most consequential work in the field, even though none of it looks dramatic.
It is also why Mike does not treat age as the reason something cannot improve. Strength and balance respond to training at any age. The dose and the pace change; the principle does not. Families weighing this for a parent can start with the balance and falls guide.
Doctor of Physical Therapy from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in 2022, an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University in 2017, and four years in practice. Mike joined Physio+ in 2024.
The letters after the name: PT and DPT for the license and the doctorate, and Cert. DN for dry needling, trained through the American Academy of Manipulative Therapy (DN1). That training is why dry needling sits alongside manual therapy in Mike's plans instead of being referred to someone else in the building.
Mike holds Texas physical therapist license number 1364261. You can confirm it yourself through the Texas licensure verification search. Board certification is a separate specialty credential that Mike does not hold. Two clinicians on this team do, and the team page names them.
Asked why physical therapy, Mike's answer was the chance to help empower someone who is in a low spot and get them back to their goals. That is the job description, more or less.
Mike attends Lifepointe Church in Tyler. Time off goes to hiking, biking, exercise, and traveling with family, in Mike's words exploring God's creation.
Trails and bikes have a clinical side effect. Uneven ground is exactly where a weak ankle gives way, and a long ride is where a stiff neck makes itself known. Those are the settings Mike has in mind when a patient says they want to get back to normal.
Mike sees patients at Fusion Lindale, 140 E Eagle Spirit Dr, Lindale, TX 75771. Physio+ also treats at FIT Tyler, 2259 Broussard Street, Tyler, TX 75701. Call or text 903.492.5215, email hello@physioplustx.com, or book online and ask for Mike. New evaluations are often available the same week.
Texas direct access law lets a doctor of physical therapy evaluate and treat you without a physician referral, so you can book with Mike directly. The direct access guide covers the mechanics. Your first visit is one on one with Mike: an exam, a working diagnosis, a written plan, and treatment the same day.
Read the rest of the roster on the team page, or read up on what Mike treats most: balance and falls, neck pain and pinched nerves, foot and ankle pain, and dry needling.
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