Thanks. I think the main takeaways are 1) trigger points can be a cause of TOS, and 2) trigger points can cause some of the symptoms that are often associated with TOS, but which may not be caused by the TOS itself.

Now that I can add urls, I might as well give the google books link for the Trigger Point Manual, v. 1:
http://books.google.com/books?id=sU0...ndrome&f=false

The section on TOS begins at the end of p. 518, which I can't see online, since it's a limited preview, but if you start reading from 519 you'll only miss the following 1 1/2 sentences at the beginning: "The thoracic outlet syndrome is a collection of symptoms. Like low back pain, it..." (Some later pages are missing, too, I see; still worth looking at).

Disclaimer: when I saw a neurologist a few years ago after 10+ years of suffering, her response was that I did display some physical signs of TOS, but, based on my pain complaints, she was willing only to say that I may have been "leaning toward TOS" but not that I had "full-fledged TOS." Now, I had over the years learned to largely control my once-extreme pain, and my problems at the time were largely tiredness, dizziness, and hand coordination problems (all of which are better now), so I don't know (maybe I should make a bio page, so I don't need to keep repeating this).

What I will say is 1) a lot of my symptoms were definitely the result of scalene tightness caused by chest breathing, and, 2) over the last year, since I first learned about trigger points, I've discovered one particularly obvious one in the left side of my upper back, and two in the left side of the crease between my legs and my belly, and I'm confident these are causes of my chest breathing, as well as the causes of some of my other symptoms.

Also, I have never had a doctor or pt mention trigger points to me - and this includes some supposedly top pain specialists - or display more than a very superficial knowledge of the subject when I raised it. It's a problem.