Was not impressed with Yale, either, which was first place. Went to Columbia for second opinion, treatment differed a bit from first, and Dr was lacking in personality (please don't act bored when you're talking about chopping out part of my body!). Freaked out by prospect of surgery, went to Mass Gen & saw Donahue. Who, unfortunately, mixed someone else's MRI in with mine, this other person had bad discs in neck, so his written diagnosisi and evaluation was completely wrong, and when I finally got him to talk to me (phone) he admitted the mistake but denied any wrongdoing on his part and said, "well, if we didn't connect that badly, then I'm not the doctor for you" and dumped me. His office had also mucked up dealing with my insurance, failed to appeal in a timely manner, and so even if he hadn't royally screwed up my case, the insurance would no longer, never, approve payment for any procedures by him. So much for the shining Dr. Donahue. Went to NYU, was clearly and completely explained and discussed, there is no bone problem, internal scarring from major car accident and broken collarbone that did not heal and was finally surgically fixed 3-1/2 months later after shifting pieces had turned my arm blue. NYU said, given my scarring history, internal keloids not just surface, surgery is the last thing I want to risk, much greater chance of losing my arm than fixing it.

So, have been going to a PT who does myofascial release stuff for the last year and a half. (also working on rest of injuries from accident.) Scar tissue is still forming, inside and out. Tried treating external for months, lost cause. Have had the injections 4 times, it's STILL growing back 3 years after accident.

Internal is evidently still changing, too, because last several weeks, things are getting worse, happening more often and more easily. Takes us over 2 hours to get to NYU, by train, as we don't do city driving (live rural). Trains only run during the day, and mostly into the City in the morning and out of it at night. I can't drive anymore, so hubby has to take a vacation day from work to drive us to train station, then we ride in and take cabs and it takes basically a whole day to do a trip into a doc in the city.

Woke up in middle of night a couple weeks ago, arm more blue and numb than usual, while moving it to make it clear, wondering just who the heck I call if it doesn't pink up--my GP who is useless, can't even get an appointment with, wait two weeks to get 5 minutes with him during which time he leaves to take a phone call (switching soon, but can't get in to new doc for 2 months), my neurologist who asked my what did I think she should do? my physiatrist who always only asks, what does Dr. X, Y, Z think? and never does anything that someone else hasn't come up with, only the others always just ask, what does Dr. X, Y, Z think, also. the cardiologist? the pulmonologist? heck, the best doctor I have out of all of them is the ophthalmologist. Only he can't do anything about this.

So, being unable to easily get to the NYU doc, or any of the others (Yale is an hour and a half away, Boston, if it was still viable, 3-1/2 hrs), having no local regular doc who knows the slightest thing about this (hence all the asking, what do the other docs think), I thought it might be a good idea to meet a local vascular guy just in case I end up in the ER here for lack of any other choice. But this guy was, well, as described above. Which makes me think I'm better off NOT going to the local hospital at all if things turn bad and won't clear up, not unless it's likely I will die if I don't get to an ER in no more than 20 minutes.

Just wondering how much, if any, of what latest local doc said is valid, as it's not what I've heard elsewhere. Of course, now I have six different opinions and approaches, varying from a little to a lot, but no one was ever flat out so definitive in what can and cannot be happening, nor so flat out refused to answer any of my questions, both about what was going on in my shoulder, and what was involved in the testing he proposed (and no, even if I wanted to go through with it, I would not consider having it done at the local yokel hospital anyway, even if I DID like the guy.)