[Jomar]

looking for help
Hi there well i am not sure how this works so i well tell you's about my self and how i got to this point. Lets see i am 42 and a female i have worked in the sailing industry for 11 years and for the past five of those years i have been a mucker i travel among a fleet of ships doing maintenance example sandblasting spray painting,working on engines,welding burning,needle gunning and paint by hand. And it is the last part that has caused all of my proublems. At first i was told i had carpel tunnel and tendonitis so they did carpel tunnel realise right in jan 05 then left in march 05. went back to work first week of may and every thing stared again and of course the company sent me to there doctors who just send me back to the ship until the first week of july when i told them what they could do if you know what i mean ha ha. Any way i was having tremors in my right arm and there doctor said it was from the carpel tunnel oh by the way the carpel realise did not work and they did my left wich i did not have carpel in. So i went to my own doctor who sent me to physiotherapy did not work and made the pain worse finely after 10 doctors later sent to one who did more test and said i had tos and right carpel tunnel and tendonitis so they changed my physiotherapy still made it worse. So off to two more doctors who said the same and the thoracic surgeon put me on the list well that was almost two years ago still waiting and it is now to the point that his only hope is to realise some pain. i am on comp and they are now starting the ball rolling return to work and i am a lost of what kind of work i would like to do and i don't even know what i can do. i am at the point now that i can hardly drive my car because of my neck hardly can turn and my hands swell and the blood vessels pop. My doctor has me on sleeping pills that don't work and pain pills that don't do much i am at the end of my rope i don't know any one else with this and since i have found this sight i truly hope that some one out there can help me i feel alone know one understands the amount of pain i live with every day for the past years and now i have to start my life over i am hoping some one has an idea of type of work i could handle with all the restrictions they put one on. Or some ideas to help with sleep just to make life a little better. Oh the things i have tried is meditiation,stetches,pacing any house work i have to do and a hole lot of pain meds and even pot wich only incresed the pain. my pain levels on a scale 0 to10 bad days 10 and on realy good days 7.5 and that is not very offten any ways that is part of my story i hope to hear from any one who can help thank you very much for reading my story and look forward to reading yours.

[Sea Pines 50]

poor mucker; you are all mucked up

so sorry you are going through this. what an exciting life you've led, i must say! please tell us where you are located so that we can help you better. are you canadian, aussie, brit? i noticed that you referred to your PT as physio - maybe you're a US citizen and i just have it wrong, but we're usually too wimpy to do the kind of work you do, in my experience, at least stateside...

OK, listen. forget about going back to any kind of work right now. that is just nutz. your J.O.B. is to start to heal. and i would get a top-notch workers comp attorney if you don't have one. i don't like the sound of the way your case has been going so far. but i am neither a W/C case nor an attorney, and obviously i cannot advise you. it's just what i would do if i were you, that's all. your rights need to be protected. and you DO have very strong rights here. this is a work-related injury, you were possibly not only misdiagnosed but operated on for the wrong thing... and now they want you to go back to work? i don't think so! let's focus on tx'ing you first, now that the correct dx has at last been made.

hopefully others will chime in with some good ideas about how to find the best attorney in your area who is KNOWLEDGEABLE about TOS and has a proven TRACK RECORD with TOS cases. those 2 things are very important, also maybe hard to find but find them you must! this can be a hard-fought case but it is one which it sure sounds to me like you have a solid chance of winning. my hope for you is that you can find a strong legal advocate to turn all that over to so that you can focus on your health, on putting together a dynamite tx team (neurologist, PT, bodyworker, PM doc, vascular surgeon [possibly], etc.), educating yourself and your loved ones (IF you can get them interested! [sometimes a challenge, but not always...] about TOS, and getting comfortable here in your new support group. we're it, kid! so pull up a chair, we welcome you with sore arms!!!

now in fairness i should point out that it is possible that you do have CTS and/or tendonitis, in addition to TOS. there can be co-morbidity, or whatever, once nerve compression takes place in the brachial plexus and you do become susceptible to some of these other painful syndromes. but it's also quite possible that those were misdiagnoses. let's be real. TOS is a monster, mucker. it can mimic the sx of several other complex intractable pain disorders, including the ones you mention. many of us come to this forum having had unnecessary carpal tunnel and cubital tunnel releases (which SO did not help!). it's part of the controversy and part of what makes TOS such a confounding area of medicine i am sure.

but the important thing is that you are here now. take a long deep breath. things are going to get better now, i promise. you are not going to be alone anymore, or have to feel like no one understands how much pain you've been in and continue to be in with this thing going on inside of you, mucker. because we do. and if you give us just a bit more info, maybe we can help you find a top TOS doc, a crackerjack attorney, a great PT and/or a miracle/bodyworker to help you along your journey.

as far as sleeping goes, pillows and icepacks are about to become strategic partners if not some of your best friends. if you play around with the search function in the upper righthand portion of your screen you might be able to pull up an older thread or two or three on that very subject, or look for someone like jo55, dimarie or other posters tried and true to burst in here at any time with fabulous ideas for you to try. i wouldn't be surprised if there's not some info posted in one of the stickys up top, where you will find a ton of information, links to medical literature, contact data re TOS drs. and PT's, etc.

i wish you the very best of luck and i hope you stick around. there's nothing easy about dealing with TOS. but you already know that. for me, it helped tremendously to learn all i could about it and to meet other people struggling with the same issues. you are so right when you say you have to start your life over; that is very intuitive, actually. this is a major, life-changing event for many of us. and your life may look very different from the way you pictured it - but it is still a life and it does go on. so welcome, welcome to you mucker. don't forget to let us know where you hail from...

alison