Parbie: Great detailed write-up of your experiences. Thank you for sharing.

I'm from the Bay Area and was a patient with Edgelow for probably over a year. During this time. I was referred to 2 Vascular Surgeons - Dr. Lee and Dr. Avery.

During my journey, I was never referred to Dr. Schneider who was at UCSF at the time. From several sources, I got the impression he was not as conservative as his peers and suggested surgery for most of his patients.

My first stop was Dr. Lee. I had a doppler test done and met with him for only a short period of time as he was running late (2 hours). He touched my collarbone area a little and described the surgery procedure he would perform on me. I do not have any vascular symptoms, only neuro. I asked him on a scale from 1-10 (10 being the worse) to rate my doppler results. He gave them a 3 and suggested I could schedule surgery on my way out. I told him I wasn't interested in surgery based upon the test results and he said, "When I get the courage, I could schedule." I should also mention I have no deficiencies in grip strength, muscle wasting or anything visibly deteriorating from neuro compression. I did not walk, but ran from the office.

My second stop was Dr. Avery. I had to have the Werden MRI to see him and had that completed for his review. Along with the MRI results, he ran me through the usual Roos, Adson, looked for bruits, etc. testing. He suggested no scalene blocks or any other invasive diagnostic testing. Based upon the results of my MRI, I would be a "surgical candidate" due to the lack of costclavicular space on both sides, but told me to "do everything under the sun to avoid surgery." He spent about 2 hours with me and told me he thought he'd never see me on a surgery table.

As you stated, it's disconcerting to have such a diversity of opinion by surgeons who treat TOS.

You can surely try the Edgelow Protocol, but I think one month is a ridiculous short period of time to see if it will work for you. Without someone to guide you through the "exercises," it can be easy to be do them incorrectly on your own. I had the guidance of Edgelow and I was still messing up at times. I did not make progress with the protocol, but I still do bits and pieces of it daily as it helps me along with intense manual therapy 2x's per week.

Best of luck on your quest!