I live in Montana and we just do not have access to medical professionals here who are very voiced in TOS.

I did travel to Denver and met with Dr. Brantigan and he said that I am certainly a canidate for surgery.

I am 40 years old and really was fairly symptom free until about 4 years ago. It began, like so many of your stories, hand and wrist pain, elbow pain and then shoulder pain, followed by numbness, tingling, a frozen shoulder, much PT, numerous cortizone shots, and then a huge lump showing up on my neck which my GP thought was a tumor. A MRI confirmed that it was actually a cervical rib. I was so excited to finally have an answer until I learned that it was not so simple. I visited 6 doctors in our area, all of which were unable to help me before I took matters into my own hands and traveled to Denver.

I got lots of information from Dr. Brantigan, (finally) but I have a few other conditions with may complicate the surgery. I have epilepsy and another loose connective tissue syndrome. Both my husband and my nero. feel that it may be important for me to go to Mayo Clinic to have them take a look at the "Big Picture".

I am concerned that this is not the best place to have the surgery and was hoping for some first hand information. Thank you to anyone who may know anything.

Jamie