A heads up if you have TOS.
 

Hi guys,

About 5 months ago I injured my right pec near the arm pit and it was some of the worst pain I've felt in along time. The injury healed very slowly but I soon stuck with stiff, inflammed hands, my arms going numb when I went to sleep, pain...just a wave of problems. My main concern however was about my arms going to sleep.

My doctor did some ROM exercises on me and said it was a possibility I had caused some trauma to the nerve. I had a hand, arm, shoulder, neck x-ray, MRI of head, a doppler of my arm, blood work...Literally a barrage of testing.

Nothing was concluded from the results because they all came back normal except one x-ray displayed inflammation in my hands.

My doctor then concluded that it was a possibility of TOS after doing a test where I had to raise my hands up for certain amount of time.

He then wanted me to do physical therapy and go see a neurologist for a better look at what might be going on...

I did all the exercises each day from PT in the morning and night, I increased my intake of all kinds of fruits and vegetables with the help of blending. I lowerd my intake of caffeine, did light exercise and this more a less did very little to help me.

My arms always had something new to bring to the table and this became a real hell.

I happend to one day go to Walmart where I work and one of the cart pushers started talking to me and I told him I was having a bad day because of all the problems occuring with my arm, the pain and the numbness had been keeping me up each night.

He then told me to go get B vitamin concentrate in liquid. He said to take 1 and half of the daily dose every day and that it should solve my problem. About 26000% Daily Recommendation.

I went ahead and lone behold my problems started to disappear...no more numbness, no more pain, and the inflammation in my hands went down so much that they finally started to look normal again.

I still sleep on my back with my arms on either side just in case but considering I have not had one problem after starting the liquid b vitamin supplement it truely makes me wonder how thousands of dollars of testing could not figure out that I was deficient in b vitamins...

A walmart cart pusher figured out how to treat my problem but a guy with
20+ years of medical experience had not the slightest idea what was going on...

So the moral of the story here is get all your blood checked to ensure you are not deficient. I never in a million years would of thought a defiency could cause so many problems.

Stuff to consider... Not all supplements are created equal or the same so do not assume like I did that because your simply taking a vitamin your getting all its benefits.

Let me recall from my studies, my Biology teacher in Microbology explained that one of the most common things found in port O pottys is undigested vitamins. Infact it was so bad that some people literally were'nt able to process any of it to the point the brand name was still showing on the vitamin.

If you take over the counter medications for heart burn you are especially prone to this problem because these medications alter the PH in your stomach. With long term use your stomach acid can become so weak it reaches the same consistency as water. It was raised as a concern over the Brand Tums which advertises their product having the added benefit of calcium! This was put in doubt because Tums once again alters the PH...how can the body break down calcium if your reducing the acidity?

If you smoke, consume large amounts of caffeine you are also prone because one full cigerette realises more than 1 billion free radicals into your body. These attach typically to vitamins and filterd out the body as waste.

Anyways I could go on....I just wanted to throw this out there because you never know it might just help someone.

Thanks,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I agree that B vitamins are generally helpful for people with nerve injuries. There is a forum on this site for "peripheral neuropathy" that has a very long thread about Vit B12. I discovered the benefits of B vits when I drank a Monster energy drink and noticed that my hands were less inflamed and felt a little better. After looking at the ingredients, I saw that it was full of B vits. I then started taking a B vit complex and it helps just llike the monster drink (it works better for me because it doesn't have caffeine like the monster drink ---- caffeine is no bueno for me).
Discovering the benefit of B vits was one of the things that changed my mind about TOS. For a long time I thought TOS was about muscle spasms, trigger points, etc and I spent a lot of time treating that and researching about that. I now believe that TOS is a peripheral nerve injury and the muscle and bloodflow issues are secondary to the nerve injury. Dr. Ellis believes this as well. When I am keeping the neuroinflammation and edema down, then my neck loosens up and blood flow improves.

** This post contains my opinions for my TOS **

How much vit B and what complex do you take? Where is the B vitamin thread?I already take B12 but need to add B complex to my regimen. High dosages of Omega 3 for inflammation and Magnesium for muscle spasms are also good.

B 12 sticky thread from PN forum-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread85103.html

Neuroinflammation have an important vascular component, maintened by the scalene and fibrosis (compression of the artery of the nerve).

Nitroglycerin may alleviate the symptoms of tos.

Improving overall endothelial function (sports, good lifestyle, maybe epicatechin) may help.

:bump:

bumpie bumpie

How long did it take to see improvement?

Can you share which exact product you use?