JAMY, do U live in Canada? It was remarkably quick, I had a 3 mo. wait to see the surgeon but when another doc offered to phone for me, the initial appt was moved up to just a few days. Then the wait for surgery was only 30 days, the amount they said it usually takes to get Ins. approval. I guess that's the good side of that highly occluded vein. Even Dr Annest said no waiting for someone who developed the vascular symptoms.

RE the outcome: I figure I'll take what I can get. If it makes the TOS 5% more bearable, if it makes the TOS surgery recovery more bearable, if it makes my cervical neck pains even 5% better, it's all good and worth the operative trauma and the post-op pains. Not to mention the comfort of a smaller size. Now I know I'd be singing a diff tune if I had thrown that clot to my lung but I felt the risk was worth it. I think you can find posts by others who had surgery quite a while ago and check out their results. I knew one wmn w/neurogenic TOS who was so delighted by her results and has worked FT for years since having reduction surgery only. She found articles and used them to prove to Kaiser that the surgery was warranted for her TOS and RSI pains.