Anne is right about RSD possibly arising out of a bad healing situation with surgery, or being triggered by an injury and then further irritated by surgery.

However, I had nothing to lose with my rib resection / scalenectomy, so I considered the risks, and luckily, my circulation saw improvement, and thus it helped my RSD situation. This may not be true for all.

I never presume to tell anyone else to have surgery or not - it has to be a personal decision, and I can only relate my personal outcome, and encourage everyone to do their research and hopefully personally interview a FEW TOS surgeons. (As I did.)