Let me introduce myself. I was on the old Brain talk boards a long time ago. My shortened story started after an injury to my left shoulder from a car trunk. My dr. at the time decided I should go to PT right away, 2 days after the accident even though something didn't feel right. I also developed severe headaches.

The PT didn't go as planned, with increasing limited range of motion, hand turning cold and numb, and numbness. I was sent to ortho who dx frozen shoulder and said I need good pain meds and more PT. Continued limited range of motion and other symptoms, an MRI, no improvement, and the ortho thought I needed pain management to be able to increase PT.

The Pain management dr. was great, but I am very sensitive to pain medication, and of course it didn't help PT (I was very compliant). Somewhere along the line TOS was mentioned and a vascular surgeon was consulted and a doppler ultra sound was done showing restricted blood flow.

I also had an EMG done, showing some C-8 involvement. However, the ortho insisted I still had a frozen shoulder and did a shoulder manipulation under general anesthesia. I was supposed to have a nerve block but the anesthesiologist decided in the operating room that it was too risky and it wasn't done. It was downhill from there! My symptoms increased.

I saw a wonderful Chiropractor who noticed my scapula was totally not moving at this point, among other thing, and I found a new PT who spent a lot of time working one on one with me. Then I was involved in three car accident in 6 months. It was terrible.

I was sent to a thoracic surgeon and he wanted to perform surgery after the first visit. I bulked, and made an appointment with Dr. Togut (who was no where near me). By this time I had had trigger point injections, botox, several blocks, PT, emgs, different meds....I also had an MRI was found another condition that cause nerve damage in the spine.

Dr. Togut dx. with bi-lateral TOS, and gave me a lot of good information. I was lucky enough to see him several times, the last time he said that my condition was getting worse. I also have a bad case of Rynaulds. My last EMG showed carpel tunnel in the right hand, and a lot of the time my right thumb twitches. I am prone to thrombosis.

I got stressed out after losing my pain management dr. after insurance changes, for awhile and just gave up with this but things are getting worse and I feel like I need to do something, but I am not sure what. Now my shoulder blade is numb, in addition to my hands and arms. I use a computer at work now, more than ever. Thanks for any advice.