Ira Rashbaum

Hello all. I have been diagnosed by 22 medical doctors, back surgeons, pain management people, NDs, the list goes on. If I stand too long I have pain in L5, if I sit too long I have pain in the thoracic so bad I want to die, lie down too long same, look down for too long, same but in the neck. I fit the personality profile to the letter. It was like John Sarno was writing that book for me specifically. I have bought and read numerous times all of his books, have done everything I can, even gone to a local shrink to see what he thought and nothing. I have had no signs it works at all but I honestly believe it is my problem as everything just fits. Does anyone know of Ira Rashbaum sees patients for TMS as I looked him up on the net and it seems like he is a heart guy. I called my insurance which is actually United Health Care and his name is on the approved list to go see ironically enough but I dont know if he is approved to be seen for TMS or do you need to have a heart issue. I have friends in NY I could stay with to keep costs down but has anyone gone to him? I have tried everything I can on my own but I just have no signs of it working at all. If I have emotional issues they are very well pushed down for sure. I appreciate any feedback on anyone that has gone to see him.

Broke Back Pilot Guy!

 

Yes, Dr. Ira Rashbaum does see patients for TMS. He is a really nice guy but not a very strong personality. It may take time to get an appointment but once you are in the office the wait is minimal.

 

Hi, Pilot Guy.
I don't know Dr. Rashbaum but he sounds like he could help you.
Meanwhile, it sure sounds like your pain is from TMS.
Your job as a pilot can and probably causes a lot of stress.
But there may be other TMS causes, one or more repressed emotions
that may stem from a perfectionist personality, wanting to please,
personal or romantic problems, dealing with family or friends or
co-workers.

Dr. Sarno in his book Healing Back Pain
and Steve Ozanich in his book The Great Pain Deception
both suggest, as I do, journaling as a way to discover any repressed
emotions that can cause physical pain. It worked for me and I'm 83
and overcame severe back pain from journaling and other healing techniques
you can read about in both books and from fellow sufferers in this forum.

Good luck and I hope you get started right away to healing yourself with TMS.
Dr. Rashbaum can help, but ultimately, we all have to do it on our own.
We at TMSWiki.org/forum are here to help you.

 

Thanks all. Honestly I feel I am teetering on a see saw here. The Xrays and MRI's show problems but nothing that 99% of the world has I should think. Buldging discs and a bend in my spine at the T4 that has caused me a fair bit of forward head carriage. I have what they call a hemivertebrae where one side of the vertebrae is larger than the other and it has caused my spine to bend. Issue is that none of the pain is at the spine, it shoots off to the right and left of the spine which just makes no sense. I started going to a sports medicine group and they started working on it. It was not causing the pain to go down but it is straightening out the spine. Honest to god one morning after reading the book, doing my exercises and so on, for the first time in my life I got a frozen shoulder. My arm could not move up if you put a million dollars on a bag and put it on a table and someone said you get it, you can have it. My arm was locked. If my shoulder or arm was to move my rotator cuff could have snapped off. 3 days over the weekend I could not move. I was ready to call the doctor on MOnday and go in and see what the heck was up and I remember Sarno's book saying if something dramatic like that happens, just let loose on your brain and tell it right off. My family was out of the house so I got on my rebounder and started bouncing up and down and boy did I let myself have it. Cursing and swearing on my brain saying I hated it for doing this to me, meanwhile my arm was locked to my side. I bounced for about 3 minutes saying "I control my brain so I control my pain" and I was not taking it anymore and my brain needs to start toeing the line to my rules or I will have it lobotomized and all this stuff. I was pissed. Anyway, 3 minutes I let this rant go and I had not been able to move my arm from a straight down position for 3 solid days and the first step off the rebounder and my arm went right to the sky with no pain at all. I nearly started to cry as it was the first sign that there might be something to all this TMS Sarno stuff. I even send Dr Sarno an email telling him and he responded which was kind of nice. I think for me, I am the most well adjusted person on the planet in so much that if I do have deep down issues my brain seems to be very good at keeping them hidden. I have had friendships where I have been screwed over and have lost money from and issues with former business decisions that were hideous but I seem to have managed to ingest them into my brain or body well enough when maybe I should have been more angry or let them out more but it is nothing that keeps me up at night but maybe it should. That is why I want to talk to Dr Ira as he seems to be the closes to the genius so most likely to be able to help tease out anything that could be holding this up. I have read the books over and over and I am trying to let it all go but I do not seem to be able to do it on my own and thought I should try and reach out to him to see if he can help me the rest of the way. It is nice to have a forum like this where people do not think you are crazy to tell a story like that.

 

Dr. Ira may be a good guy but you may be disappointed with him when it comes to TMS. He doesn't seem to mention it to the people I've sent to him. They've all come away more confused than when they walked into his office. I'm sure he's a good doctor and person or Dr. Sarno wouldn't have written papers with him, and handed over his practice to him. But TMS takes confidence and aggressive-assertion to heal from, and Ira doesn't appear to have either.

If you can get to Paul he has the TMS "it factor" that is needed for healing. I highly recommend him.

This line from you says it all << I think for me, I am the most well adjusted person on the planet>>
I felt the same way, as have most of the people I've worked with through the years. It's called "buying into your own press." The superego is controlling.

Good luck
Steve

 

You're right, Steve. We don't want to have low self-esteem or bully ourselves
by admitting we may need to work on some repressed emotions,
but we do need to stand nekked before TMS and admit we aren't perfect.
Only our dog is.

 

Who is Paul? I figured Ira would have to be the hands down best man to go to as he was directly under Sarno all these years and he talks about him in the book and so on. I sent him a note and he said he does work on TMS patients so it is something he seems he is open to at least discussing but if there are better folks out there I am open to hearing about it.

Thanks all

 

Sorry pilot guy, Paul is Paul Gwozdz, MD, in Somerset, NJ. These are just my opinions of course, but they're based on what I've seen and what people have relayed to me.

Ira Rashbaum, MD, is certainly a good doctor. I'm told by people who work with him that he's a great man, doctor, and colleague. He was also buried in work when all of Dr. Sarno's workload got dumped on him.

But TMS healing is a fantastically fickle ferociously funny feat in its own right. It takes confidence. If I could reach in and instill one thing into the people I try to help, it would be confidence. Doubt, that there could be something physically wrong, is the highest hurdle in TMS healing.

Since I healed, I can easily look back and see that I was ok, physically. But it's very difficult for people in the midst of healing to see. So I try to build them up so they can erase doubt slowly over time. Dr. Sarno was the king of that process. It was within his own confidence that I healed myself. He did the same for most others with his aggressive assertion in TMS. Ira Rashbaum, MD, doesn't do that. Paul Gwozdz, MD, does.

I'm not making any judgment on either man. They are both great men who have earned great respect. The difference is in their personalities and the ability to instill healing confidence in their TMS patients.

Good luck,

Steve

 

When you say you got screwed over and you maybe didn't feel enough anger at it - well - so TMS! It IS what is hidden. What you have been angry at - so mad, that your unconscious has buried it and given you the pain to worry and fret about instead. It is finding all those things that are hidden - the psychological reservoir of rage that will eventually allow all your pain to go - because there won't be anything to hide anymore... Get journaling, do the structured education programme on this site, read more, make appointments to see TMS Drs - but most of all, just get a notebook out, get a pen, and write... good luck!

 

Thanks everyone. I guess I just dont really get what it is I am supposed to write about. I write down every time I see proof of this working. I review that and say, there you go, proof positive that TMS is real but my back is destroyed. Today I was building a greenhouse in my back yard so a lot of bending over and nailing boards and so on and inside of 10 minutes I was in so much pain I thought I was going to cry. Joints are stiff but bending over, I can stand on the palms of my hands, do yoga, anything and no pain but bend over to fiddle with something on the ground or sit in a chair too long and I am wrecked with pain. If my conscious mind has buried the issues that I might be repressing how do I know to write about them? Does Ira try and tweak out the negative emotions or Paul or do they just tell you about TMS and if their conversations do not work they then send you to a psycho analyst. I stumbled on to him through Howard Stern as I can remember back in his Kroc days he would often do his show lying on the floor as his back was in such pain and he met Dr Sarno and pretty much like magic he was cured. I just think I may need help bringing out the negative emotions as I have no frame of reference on how to figure out which ones are the real nasty ones and which ones are ok. I was hoping Ira or a TMS Doc would be able to help pull that out of me. I have read all the books cover to cover and I know this is in my head but nothing is working. After 22 doctors, I have been injected with everything 20 times over, nothing works. Radio Frequency Ablation is my next step to see if they can just burn the nerves but I know that will not work either. If that does not work I am just going to get on a plane and fly to see someone as I am literally without hope. I went to the Pain Whisperer guy Tom Chi who is a great guy up in NY and he works on presidents and Oprah and all these rich money bags people so I was surprise he saw me. he has a 99% success rate with back pain and of course as I absolutely predicted, I am one of the 1% where it did not work. After watching that frozen shoulder episode that sold me that this TMS is real and I just need to get guidance as for whatever reason I am just not getting it from the books no matter how hard I try. My life has been over for a year and a half now. All this came on during a very stressful time I was working on a business project that all fell apart and slowly the pain came so I am textbook Sarno personality etc. Thanks all. Hopefully I can find someone to guide my hand in this process. Very encouraging to hear the testimonials of some of the folks that have gone down this path. pretty remarkable really.

 

IMHO I think you can't see the wood for the trees! Go to the top of this page - at the top left, click on 'TMSwiki' then scroll down and look on the left hand side until you see 'Structured Educational Programme', click on it. Then look down - find 'Day 1' and click on it. Follow it thru - even if you have read/heard it before. Carry on to Day 2 - 3 - 4 etc. Do what it tells you. On one day you make lists - past stresses - stuff from your childhood and early life - divorce, moving house, school, anything that happened when you were young - that might have caused stress - even if you don't think you found it stressful. Then a list of 'life stresses - stuff that might be stressing you now, business deals, work, family dynamics, love, lack of love, relationships, money etc. Then a list of characteristics you have - perfectionism, goodism, all the ways you 'are' in life - happy to help others, private, a joiner-in, a team player, or not. When the 'Day' tells you to journal, you are directed to choose one of these subjects, and then to journal in different ways to find the triggers/emotions you have. It is powerful.
I also started off thinking ' I know all this I don't need to write about it' BUT writing in a journal - for instance about stuff that happened when I was a child - and doing it with my right hand, really brought some hidden angst to the surface. I was angry and resentful against my parents for totally different reasons than I had consciously thought! The same with the 'spider' method.
The programme is there to help us - we just need to trust the process and do it -even if we don't think 'that bit' applies to us. Do it all - and see where you end up. You can consult as many doctors or learned people you want - it is still YOU who will sort it out in the end!
I've spent 22 years in pain, I had to use a wheelchair, I had to give up the chance to have children - now I am 90% cured and I will not stop until it's 100% - and I will continue with the 'work' all my life - so that I do not fall prey to TMS again!! This stuff really works - please give it a go!

 

Hecate, you got it. A truly inspirational posting. It's all in thinking back on our childhood and journaling about it, then finding our repressed emotions that cause TMS pain. I thought I had done this about 15 years ago when I wrote a book about my childhood, but it was too sugar-coated. It wasn't real at all, but that's how I stored it in my head.

Learning about Dr. Sarno and TMS I began daily journaling for weeks, and came to realize that my boyhood really was a lot more stressful than I remembered, because I had repressed it. Parents divorcing, mom marrying a stranger for security, that ending, going back with my birth father, then him dying and she marries his jealous brother. Moving all the time, hearing my parents always worrying or arguing about money. It and other things gave me a lot of stress.

Pilot in Pain needs to do some deep remembering. It will free him as it did you and me.

Bless us all.

 

I hope so and I am willing to do and try anything. I will definitely keep you all posted.

 

My dh, a truly great guy, is deep in denial about his issues. He absolutely denies being angry (when anybody would be!) and will not consider that his back pain might be tms. I have given up trying to change him but it is sure hard to watch him in agony, messing up his life, when the solution is available. Fact is, no one can do it for you. If you can see experts, great, but it's still your choices, your determination, your willingness and hard work that will get you there in the long run.

You've shown a lot determination and can do this. With some people, maybe they can't, but I think you can. Doesn't matter if it take time and effort. Some day, if you're like me, you'll look back and be grateful to the pain because it made you take a direction in life that, otherwise, you never would have been willing to take.

 

Thanks Njoy. It is ironic as today I was schedule for them to actually do radio frequency ablation or whatever it is called on my back. I had kind of gone to the end of my rope. I figured if they burnt it and the pain moved than it would be proof positive that Dr Sarno is right. Because the pain moved around, the doctor that was to have burnt it declined doing it as he said if the pain is moving all over the place then he can not focus in on one area where he has to burn so that was scrubbed as of this afternoon. I am kind of glad in a way as I can do this step by step plan and see how it goes and hopefully I turn it off once and for all without having to do anything drastic like that.

 

My post to you helped my situation because I got motivated to read Ch 37 (they're short chapters!) of Steve Ozanich's Great Pain Deception:​

"It is better to talk about frustrations, disappointments, and fears, never the body." I tried this out today on my husband and he was quite willing to talk about feelings instead of his pain! Taking it slow, but I'm pretty sure this is going to help him.​

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Have you ever listened in on the Tuesday night discussion? You can talk, or not, as you please, of course. Right now, we are using Steve's book as a jumping off point and it is always an interesting hour or so. You'd be most welcome. The info is at the top of this page, right hand side.​

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Also, it's always possible to listen in, later, on the podcasts. ​

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One last suggestion, pilot. There's an excellent Ted Talk about making sure all the stress you are currently feeling doesn't have long term effects on your health. It's quite amazing and you can find it here: http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend.html ​

 

All good info. I will look at it all. I just finished day 3 of the structured program. I will do every single day until this is done!

 

Wow that Ted talk is something. All of life is really perception, stress, this TMS, it is mind over matter. If you dont mind it dont matter basically. Should be the new TMS slogan.

 

I just want to highly recommend Dr. Paul Gwozdz in Somerset, N.J. I went to see him in September and he was
amazing. He really understands TMS and can help you understand what underlying issues are causing the pain.
I left his office and couldn't stop smiling for days after he saw me. I was just so happy I had a better understanding
of why I was experiencing these symptoms.. I would definitely check him out. I think you will be very happy
you did.