I've been on rat poison for a year now. I have no issues. My INR was very stable. I only tested every 5 weeks. Shaving can be a little irritating, but otherwise I never notice.

The worry is both the risks associated with living, car accidents and the like, and God knows what side effects these things might have in the long term. I don't trust them. I've seen some stuff suggesting that Warfarin might lead to significant bone density loss in just a year. . . . I don't know about Xalerto, but I wouldn't trust it either. I'd risk surgery before taking this stuff for 40 years.


Right now, I'm fine. Thanks. I haven't taken so much as a Tylenol for over 3 days. The only pain I feel is if I take a maximal breath and then tighten my abdomen. I'm going to have to work on stretching that out.

I'm sure I could drive without any problems, but I'll wait. . . . I've been going for daily walks of 3 to 6 miles. No issues at all. I did a bunch of pointless body weight squats yesterday just to see. No issues.

I was terrified by the surgery for months, November through April. Then I just stopped worrying. It was a strange moment. . . . In retrospect, I was far too worried. The nTOS cases on this forum were the main cause of concern.

I had a small surgery when I was 17. I hated coming out of sedation. This time it wasn't nearly as bad. The Toradol they gave me tastes awful, but it works very well. My throat was seriously irritated for a few hours, but that's it. They gave me some saline mist via a nebulizer. It helped. The risks of modern anesthesia are very low. It's not like they smash an ether soaked rag on your face until the light goes out of your eyes.

The chances of paralysis are extremely low. The only serious concern is long term pain. But this seems like much more of a problem for nTOS than vTOS. There's some reason to think that the idiopathic nTOS cases shouldn't have this surgery. The horror stories here are mostly, if not exclusively, of that kind.