Hunched shoulders?
 

Whether sitting, standing or laying down, it seems like my shoulders move up upward towards my ears kind of hunched. I will notice symptoms of neck spasm and and tingling when this happens. Anyone else with shoulders drifting upwards?:confused:

The spasms could be pulling upwards, have you had anyone try to press down on your top ribs? called top rib or first rib mobilization.. rib mob for short..
and check for trigger points too. ( do this part first) then rib mob..

usually the muscle tenses, and continued tension creates trigger points -knots in the muscle - those need to be released before the muscles can fully relax.

There's videos of top rib mobilizations & trigger point info posted in threads recently as well as the sticky threads..


Are your shoulder level/even, many of us have uneven shoulders...

I will check the sticky threads. thankyou

Yes, I get this if I sit for too long at the computer.

If I lay down in "corpse pose" (but with my legs bent for the comfort of my back), I can get this phenomena to settle down. I focus on letting go of all my face, neck, shoulder and back muscles on each exhalation. Can take several mins.

Something to try.

Hi radtech,

Same or similar issue with me as well. My shoulders drift up and forward unconsciously. Happens during the day and when I'm sleeping; I wake up with shoulders way up towards my ears. Dr. Donahue says my body is doing this to open the area of compression. Problem is that I engage upper trap and neck muscles, causing spasms in the neck and face. Also worsens the fairly constant headache I have. These symptoms make sense since it's like doing perpetual isometrics. When I try to adopt more "correct" posture with relaxed shoulders I get increased, severe arm and hand pain but the neck/face issues ease up. Totally frustrating.

Does Dr. Donahue have any insight to some really good PT/body workers in his area??
Seems like that would be a big plus for all TOS drs to locate the best in their respective locations.
Or even bring some on board in a clinic all onsite.. a one stop TOS setting..

He recommended only one person, Eileen Collins at MGH. I'm sure she's helped some folks with TOS, but didn't work out for me and caused flare-ups, that lasted weeks. Eileen doesn't believe in massage, rib mobilization, trigger point work (the only modalities that have helped to somewhat relieve my symptoms). She says massage may feel good at the time, but will only aggravate symptoms. Her approach is cardio and strengthening exercises (shoulder girdle, core) and she had me push through exercises although they immediately caused pain. Again, this approach may work for some but didn't for me.

Hmm sure doesn't sound like the best PT plan to me..sounds like the old standard PT approach..and that one does not work for many of us with TOS..:confused:


After the pain & symptoms are under control (0-2 on pain scale), then my PT's added more active things like that..

When my TOS was much worse, I used to put a pillow or two under my elbow. This would give me that relief from the compression, but without me having to contract my shoulder and neck muscles.

Funny thing is, they would start to contract anyway like they were on autopilot. Maybe out of habit. But I just kept relaxing them over and over.

On my bad side, I often find my shoulder raised up and tensed, while my other side is totally relaxed and normal height. I didn't know whether this was causing the pain problem or a consequence of it. I have asked many docs about it and none of them could provide any insight. Dr Donahue's response is very interesting and it also seems to make sense to explain my neck pain. Thanks very much for the post!

Pec minor surgery put my shoulders back 3 inches. Shoulders are still up about 4-5 inches from where I can pull them down to doing the first rib mobilization.

Did physical therapy for ten years being told to fix my posture. Pec minor surgery fixed it instantly. It's fun to point it out to people because they think you are lazy and sluggish if you have bad posture. They think you did not do your pt at home if you don't get better.