Tourette's Success Stories
Real stories from real people that have experienced recovery from conditions involving involuntary movements.
Names and locations may have been changed for the protection of clients.
Our Daughter Is A Completely New Person!
Story from the parents of a struggling teen
“When the rockets started to fall, five years ago, we had no idea it would change our lives!”
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When Brocha*, a young teen, exhibited some fears after they spent the greater part of the night in their sealed room due to rockets flying in northern Israel, her parents chalked it up as a natural reaction to the trauma.
But when the fears lingered and she was afraid to go out alone, they knew they had to do something.
“Before we could even react, Brocha's teachers called. Brocha had become withdrawn, intense and unusually shy and timid. Gone was our good-natured, happy girl. In her place stood a girl we did not recognize.
“We tried talking to her but she barely responded and seemed afraid to talk. When we pushed her to open up, “all we got was stammering and stuttering in a scratchy-sounding, hesitant voice we barely recognized! Did our bright, well-adjusted child forget how to talk?
After that the facial tics started and Brocha became even more reluctant to speak. The school was getting more concerned as her grades slipped and she stayed inside during her recess break.
“We took her to a therapist who tried behavior modification techniques to get Brocha to change her newfound behaviors. When that did not work we tried medication but it didn’t either help. The tics were getting more pronounced and Brocha was so sad and quiet and a shadow of herself as her high school years progressed in this whirlwind of tics and intense stammering.
“We heard of a private specialist who does an immersive training in four weeks where the patient lives together with her trainer. We cried as we sent off our daughter, who should have been going to sleepovers and her Seminary Shabbaton, to this training program.
“Brocha returned and there was little or no change. We had spent a considerable amount of resources and emotional energy and were depleted and discouraged. After that someone mentioned that Mr. Weiss was in Eretz Yisrael and he was an expert in stuttering. We had nothing to lose so I set out to track down this guy.
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“I found out that it was not a cheap proposition but my wife and I felt that we needed to try. I got a hold of Mr. Weiss and set up an appointment with my daughter. He spoke to her for a couple of hours and did what we like to call “magic". He assured us that her fear was not related to any rockets or talk of war. It was simply not connected and he got to the root of the problem instead.
“My daughter emerged from their talk and began talking quite regular. There was no stutter, no tics at all. In the past four weeks she has continued speaking to Mr. Weiss on the phone and the chizuk she derives from those conversations has made her speech stronger. She is a completely new person – back to her former self as she continues to open up. More than anything to see her smiling again has given us the greatest hope. My wife and I gauge her at 90% back to “old Brocha" in these few weeks. But the happy girl who finally seems at peace is 100% the most important factor in this whole story.”
*names and identifying details have been changed.
"It's a miracle!"
Story from a Mother of a child with Tourette's
“It's a complete miracle,” says the mother of a child struggling with Tourette's for many years. As I listen to her story I try to fathom what it was like for them. “Our kid is almost permanently cured. We still cannot believe it!”
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When she was about six years old she started presenting with a nervous twitch. At first it only showed up a handful of times within a year, but slowly it progressed. Inasmuch as the twitches came and went over the years eventually it became a part of her.
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“We tried every cure you can think of. We did the holistic route with drops and oils. We tried energy. We did magnetic energy. We tried acupuncture- you name it, we tried it - but to no avail. Nothing worked.”
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I hear the struggle in her voice, the years of pent up frustration and heartache as she quietly continues.
“You have to understand that by now these twitches were more like entire body movements. Besides for the head and facial twitching, it was her entire body that was twitching.
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“We heard about Mr. Weiss in New York but being that we live in Florida it was a long shot – literally. For how long would she have to go live there to get helped? At 20 years old she was old enough to travel alone but still. Covid travel in 2020 was not fun but when we heard that Mr. Weiss was willing to give it a try – eventhough it was not a stuttering case – his usual area of expertise; we knew we had to book a flight.”
It seems that although Mr. Weiss had worked successfully with people who both stuttered and suffered from twitches he had never tried his approach on someone who did not stutter in combination with their tics.
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“In New York, my mother went with our daughter to Mr. Weiss but we have no idea what he spoke to her privately for a couple of hours about. We do know that she went to rest up as it is an exhausting brain-altering experience but she returned that evening refreshed to tackle some more work. The next day was Friday. Shira went again and then again Motzei Shabbos and Sunday. Mr. Weiss really wanted her to stay a bit longer but on that very Sunday she left to come home and when she did she was , I would say, 65% better!”
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Mr. Weiss continued speaking to Shira on the phone once she was back home in Florida. “Slowly she got to 75%, 85% and as we were nearing Purim, he assured her that by Purim she would have her yeshuah.
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“Indeed, we witnessed our own Purim miracle as on Purim Shira had achieved 100% success! Gone are the full body movements, those have totally disappeared and Mr. Weiss is certainly working on a permanent control of her situation. Sometimes she still has some slight head or facial movements and we see that with a few minutes over the phone he can help control them with her. Most of the time we see a 95% solution to her problem – and that is a real miracle!”
*Names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.