What a crummy situation for you. I guess my first question would be: How many surgeries of this type has your neurologist seen? I mean, if he says he's "never seen it turn out well" and he's only seen two, that's very different than if he's seen 200, particularly if those two weren't performed by experts.

Personally, I had four doctors advise me against surgery; none of whom had more than a passing acquaintance with TOS, two of whom have changed their tune to "I didn't really advise against it; I just didn't feel comfortable recommending it since I'm not all that familiar with the condition," which is total crap. The other two doctors I've not had a reason to see since surgery, and one of them has retired, so I don't know what their responses would be. Because of those doctors, I put off having surgery for years - years that I will never get back, years I spent in constant pain, years that I regret listening to them, taking drug after drug and trying therapy after therapy (and spending a fortune on it!) while my condition steadily worsened.

I have only had the opportunity to talk with one person actually in person who had surgery more than a year ago; she was almost 3 years post-op when I talked to her, and she said that even though her initial recovery was really tough, possibly the worst couple weeks of her life, she was glad now she'd had the surgery and was definitely enjoying a better quality of life. Though she was not a patient of Dr. P's, she did have the surgery done at Baylor.

Reading through this forum, you will find people who were helped by surgery, people who weren't, and people who are worse off than they were before - and people in each category from a variety of different circumstances. The best you can do is research, consult the experts, and go with what your heart tells you is the right thing. It's not a decision anyone else can (or should) make for you.