parbie, I am sorry that your recovery is moving so slowly. From everything I have ready on here and on the TOS support group, a good PT is crucial in having a good outcome from surgery or helping in avoiding surgery. Just like you I have been seeing someone who has never treated TOS - and I am actually getting worse from the treatment. When I told them I wanted to avoid certain things, they got an attitude and said I had to push thru the pain. grrrr I have decided not to continue because being in painful flares for days is not worth it. I will continue my search which will mean driving a long distance (driving is not easy with TOS ) and I have also started learning the Alexander Technique. It has been very helpful with posture and movement. I hope you have finally found a PT who will help you get stronger. Best of luck to you in your recovery!
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Originally Posted by parbie
So I have realized even more that I was seeing a therapist who made me worse rather than better for 4 weeks and it really sucks that I didn't realize it sooner. When I asked him to not touch my pec area or scalenes/brachial plexus area anymore because Dr Annest said he needs to back off due to my high sensitivity, he did not react well and thought everything he was doing was right.
Regardless, I now have a new therapist and she is great so far. She is very willing to follow the 3 protocols I gave her (Denver, Edgelow, and Ando). She is just taking what she believes will help my individual case from each and applying it and although she does not specialize in TOS she seems to know enough and is also manually certified (hard to come by in my area). She has been doing joint and rib mobilization so far and it seems to be helping but I still flare up whenever doing any activity for too long afterwards.
The nerve glides I have been doing at home I feel are not helping at all, her recommendation was to continue with them but be very very aware of my neural tension even if it means moving my arm/hand/wrist very slightly. The edgelow breathing is also getting worse rather than better for me and I can't seem to figure out why. I sometimes cannot do more than 5 mins of it. I am continuing with heat and ice, neural desensitization as my brachial plexus that entire area of my neck still seems to be pretty fired up, and of course continuing my meds and using a new lipoderm cream. I am still having lots of pain in my pec minor area and my neck, especially near my occipital nerve area as well but the joint mobilization helps with that. My shoulder blade (winged scapula) as well as my shoulder joint area also are painful. Massage of my shoulder blade and upper back help. But my shoulder I have a feeling is due to my labral tear. My left side is becoming more symptomatic, I thought it was better after surgery, but maybe its because my right side was/is so bad, I didn't notice the left as much. My therapist thinks it is a result of my overuse of that arm as well as her mobilizing my ribs, which hasn't been done since before surgery. Ok more than enough typing but I think I covered everything!
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