I saw Dr. Adelman this Wednesday. He was awesome. Your first visit must have been an off-day. When he called another doc for a PT referral for our local area, and as he was dialing something made me ask who, and it turns out it was our local hospital's vascular surgeon, (who had completely misdiagnosed me last November, and rudely told me to go away, which started this nearly year-long odyssey for simply a correct diagnosis and treatment plan), and hubby and I both shouted "No!" in alarm, and quickly told him why, he said he wouldn't tell the guy who I was. And when he got him on the phone, the guy evidently asked why he needed a physical therapist so far out of the city, Dr. Adelman said something like "they're going to be traveling between the two (places) quite a bit" and gave us a sheepish grin and wink; and local dr. wrong on the other end evidently bought it as their conversation continued.

So....my tos, which is vascular indeed, involving both artery and vein, is caused by scar tissue wrapped around artery, vein, and probably nerves, from the underside of my collarbone where it was broken and took so long (and surgery) to heal. It is NOT because my rib and collarbone are too close together, or because the muscles are wrong/too tight/whatever. This agrees with the CT results from Boston (but Dr. D's mixing someone else's MRI in with mine had skewed his take....). This agrees with what I feel and what seems to affect things and trigger things.

Dr. Adelman says the riskiest thing would be to do surgery, scar tissue is tougher than arteries and veins and such, so if you start messing with it, guess what gives way first....and he said there was a very very real chance I could completely lose use of my arm if surgery was done. Plus, I don't need more room made by removing bone and muscle, that is not the problem.

He says PT by a knowledgeable person to get the scarring to loosen up. Something NO ONE in the past 16 months ever listened to me about, no matter how many times I told them I could feel I was stuck and restricted and couldn't move right. I am happy I don't seem to need the surgery (unless blood clots or something develop, which have to be taken care of quickly), but I am also so mad that so many doctors and physical therapists missed the boat, didn't take time to look properly, didn't listen to me or give anything I said any value. I count at least 10 doctors and 8 PT's who treated or evaluated me in all that time. They wasted well over a year of my life and my children's life, and halted recovery of my other injuries by keeping my activity so restricted that I able to work on my back or my knees or anything else. And a few of them would have unnecessarily removed healthy parts of my body, possibly with serious damage done.

So now I have to wait and see if this PT person really knows what they are doing. After all, the name is coming from a chief of vascular surgery who said I did not have a vascular problem and that he didn't believe the MRA that so clearly showed a blocked area.

Wish me luck.