Hi all,

I am writing this to inform everybody of something that may be causing your thoracic outlet syndrome. This is not a sure cure for everybody as there are many different reasons for thoracic outlet syndrome. I recommend taking a quick read of this article as much of it pertains to depressed scapula.

Overcoming Chronic Neck Pain: Postural Causes and A Unique Exercise Fix | Fix The Shoulder Blades — The Exercise

There's a lot of info in this article relating to studies that have shown that a depressed scapula or shoulder can actually cause thoracic outlet syndrome symptoms. This article provides a lot of information on how to go about fixing this problem. It also has links to studies of people who have dealt with this problem and fixed it. I am currently working on the workouts in this article and am actually seeing results finally.

I am also going to provide you all with a link to a blog that I came across. This particular person had depressed shoulders and chronic neck pain along with thoracic outlet syndrome. If you are in the pain that I have been in I highly recommend you take the time to read his experience. He talks about going through PT doing the typical stretching routines and not finding success. He finally comes across a PT who notices his depressed shoulders and put him on a strengthening routine that he outlines in his blog. He includes videos and lifestyle changes that improved his life tremendously.

Remy's Remedies

I have tried to get ahold of this particular person but it doesn't seem that the comments on his site are working unfortunately. But I would like to give a big shout out to him regardless because I feel like I may have finally found the answer to getting out of my chronic pain. Therefore because I finally have hope and this forum has been a great place for me I thought I would share this with all of you in case it might help.

I am still going to PT and I brought this up with them and fortunately they are very receptive to my ideas. They did indeed tell me that this goes against traditional thought. But after months of minor success and setbacks we have agreed to try something different.

Also here is one more scientific article about dropped shoulder syndrome.

Dropped shoulder syndrome: a cause of lower cervical radiculopathy. - PubMed - NCBI

I hope these resources do good for some. I have spent months researching my own issues. The traditional shoulders back and down and stretching routines just weren't doing it for me and actually made things worse. I feel that I still have a long road ahead but I also feel like there may be a clear path forward now.

Best of luck! Let me know what you all think and if you pursue this avenue please share your results for others.