Hi gbsb,

Johanna and I both go to 'SuperJoyce the wonder PT". She is wonderful and a TOS specialist. I wish we could clone her. Before JOyce, like Johanna, I went to a PT that was aware of TOS and some exercises but did not touch my body and had me do exercises and strength training after 3 weeks and told me I should be doing better. I did the best when they actually worked on the area of injury with ultrasound. The ultrasound helps break the adhesions but I don't think it can break them all the way. Also lilt therapy helped me too to calm down the nerves.

I agree with Peg, the tens unit calms the nerves and is for pain and is only temporary, atleast for me. I agree with astern though give it more time.

I also have a chiro I work with and pain doc/aupuncturist. I am guinea pig and try anything. The chiro made a big difference when they started workin on lump at my T1 spot.

Then I found Joyce. She is one of only 12 TOS specialists in the state of California. She studies how your body moves and finds the areas that do not move so well and works on them with her hands. Like today I went there and she could see that the head of my shoulder and clavicle were pulling forward so she worked on stabilizing it and releasing it. Why because my lats were extremely tight today. Other days it's the ribs she works on and mobilizes and pushes them back into place. Joyce says it's all connected so your PT really needs to find the trouble area and slowing work on them. When I first went to joyce I only had 45% rotation from my injury. Today I am at 80% but Joyce and I worked on it for 9 months and then I still had surgery to try to take it the rest of the way.

I will always go to Joyce for a long time. She makes my body feel almost normal.

It's all in the mechanics of how the body should work. Strengthening should come much much later. And posture is so important. It seems that atleast for me, my body is pulling me forward and the muscles have shortened and pulled the ribs out of place causing compression of nerves for me. And then the nerves irritate the muscles and they spasm and crush the nerves. Fun cycle of pain. It made everything swell and then inflammation made scar tissue that further entrapped the nerves. And boy did my pain radiate. Like I said in my PM I seriously thought that my thoracic spine was in trouble and sure enough it was the nerve trapped in the TOS area.

I asked Joyce today if she had any ideas for you. She recommended that you call a PT place in northern california called Edgelow. They developed a specific TOS PT program. She thought they may have a reco for your area since they train PT's in TOS. They have a home program that maybe you and your PT could explore. Ask you PT to do some homework on Edgelow. Maybe your PT could call Edgelow and talk to them about your treatment and seek advice. I found the website along time ago through another website called www.doctorellis.com

She also recommended Sharon Butlers book which she refers too. I found it on Amazon. And there is a book(s) that Joyce also recommended that I'll admist some parts were over my head but they had exercises at the end for TOS. It was called mobilisation of the nervous system by David Butler. He also has a second book. I read them both and some things I got and others I did not. BUt I know Joyce has read all three books and put them into practice.

Maybe a little gift of books for PT is in order. Make them a better PT. Push them. Have a heart to heart and say I am as frustrated as you and it's ok to be that way but don't give up on me and let's try some new stuff.

But whatever you do, don't let em make you feel like you are not able to improve. Keep trying and try someone new that will learn about TOS with you. Each of us is different and has TOS for different reasons.

And I will be so mad if they cancelled you because they are frustrated.

I also thinkyou may need some meds to calm the nerves down. I forget have you tried neurontin?

Go get em gbsb, we are here to back you up!