Month: June 2023

My name is Sandy and I live in New Paltz, NY. I began to experience migraine headaches when I was a teenager, and they got worse as I got older. I am now 67 years old and have spent the better part of every week of my adult life completely bedbound. I met with over 20 neurologists (at the world’s best institutions like NYU and Yale) and tried various approaches that either didn’t work at all or made me worse. My symptoms of migraine resulted in me not being able to show up for many life events like my daughter’s high school and college graduations. As you can imagine, my marriage and friendships also suffered.

When I couldn’t make our planned Christmas festivities this past year, my husband’s college roommate referred me to Dr. Sarno’s teachings and I found the list of practitioners on the PPDA website.

I believe that finding Dr. Laurel Steinberg and learning her method for preventing the migraine mechanism was a god-send for me. I am now completely symptom free for 3 months…I was going to write sooner but didn’t want to “jinx” it. However, I now realize that I’m fully in control.

I thank god for giving me the opportunity to have learned “The Headache Preventive Lifestyle” (a holistic approach she has had great success with) and for bringing this nice lady into my life. Her knowledge on migraine headaches and psychology is remarkable (she’s a psychology professor at Columbia too)– and she also helped me with my anxiety and relationships (sister and husband). Thank you!

A few years ago I was experiencing numbness and tingling in my right pinky after playing piano and lifting weights. Soon after that I was feeling the same sensation in my left pinky as well. I knew nothing about TMS during that time.

I went to a hand surgeon who had me do an EMG / Nerve conduction study. The test showed that I had a slow down in my nerves at both elbows. The doctor was also able to see that I had ulnar subluxation (nerve ‘popping’ over the medial epicondyle at both my elbows. Medication and hand therapy was not working so the doctor strongly recommended surgery. I decided to go with surgery on my right elbow, ulnar nerve transposition surgery. The surgery seemed to fix my right pinky but the numbness came back after about five months.

During that time I was afraid of playing piano and afraid of lifting weights. I decided to take a break from my two favorite hobbies, but after the six month break my problems reappeared as soon as I started again.

To make a long story short, I have healed because I got over my fear. I decided to lift weights like I normally would and play piano at least 30 minutes a day. At first I would experience the numbness, like I was used to. I used to be afraid that I was damaging my nerves. I just kept training and eventually the problem went away as my fear diminished. Some other things that helped me get over my fear was:

-Reading the TMS books, such as the Divided Mind, The Great Pain Deception, To Be Or Not To Be… Pain-Free.

• I found multiple studies that it is normal for athletes to have ulnar nerve subluxation. It was something like more than 50% of athletes have asymptomatic ulnar subluxation.
• I went to another hand doctor and even though he isn’t a TMS doc, he told me that he is 100% certain there is nothing wrong with my hands, despite the EMG tests.

It helps to hear that from a doctor.

I hope this story helps anyone who is having similar issues. For what it’s worth I can press 135lbs over my head and bench press 225lbs, which certainly requires movement of the elbow, without any of my previous issues.