Originally Posted by parbie

Dr. Angle called me directly from his cell after I left a message with his office and faxed over my paperwork. I explained my symptoms, history and asked my questions and spoke with him for at least a half hour. He also told me to call back anytime if I had any more questions. Very few doctors do this, and I liked that alone because it means he is easily reachable and available for post-surgery recovery (which will evidently be lengthy). This factor is also important to me since I am going to be doing surgery out of state. So here are all the answers to the questions I asked him:
-10-11 years experience, has done 75 to 100 TOS surgeries to date
-could not tell me his success rate for nTOS because he says he is very selective with those cases and was unsure, but he said he has no recurrent cases
-Trained at UCLA
-Transaxillary approach (his preference for this is because you get 2 incisions the supraclavicular approach, he said if you have the experience, the approach is not more difficult)
-would completely remove the cervical and first ribs, and a partial scalenectomy with the anterior and median scalenes, and neurolysis of the brachial plexus (which he said less than 5% of patients need)
-said nTOS patients do not get complete relief as often because there is usually a lot of trauma involved and other diagnoses like fibromyalgia
-said I have classic identifiable symptoms, 90% of the diagnosis is made by the clinical exam, but would have me do an MRI venogram (one last test)
-3 to 6 months before operating on the other side
-has not seen anyone with Pec minor syndrome and feels the diagnosis is “questionable”
-surgery would be 2 hours, would be hospitalized for 1 to 2 nights, off work for at least 4 weeks, physical therapy begins 4 to 6 weeks after
Overall, I really liked Dr. Angle. He was very easy to talk to, kind and understanding, and definitely very experienced and knowledgeable.