Cubital Tunnel vs. TOS
 

I watched the Dr. Donahue video on TOS and when he was discussing things that you could have instead of TOS, he mentioned cubital tunnel saying that with cubital tunnel you have numbness in your pinkie and half of your ring finger.

When I get numbness in my ring finger, it is always just half of it.

But I also get a pain on the thumb side of my elbow.

So....do I

1. have cubital tunnel because my ring finger splits in numbness

or

2. have thoracic outlet because i also have pain on my thumb side

hahah!

I'm not a doctor, but it is highly probable that you actually have both in what's called "double crush syndrome." That's when your nerve is crushed higher up making it more sensitive down the nerve to even slight impingement causing symptomology. In double crush, often the minor impingement symptoms are relieved by fixing the "real" problem.
For example, I had TOS and then tested positive for carpal tunnel. Now that I've had surgery, my carpal tunnel symptoms have disappeared but no one freed the nerve down at my wrist. Make sense?

One of my early dx's was epicondylitis/tennis elbow, but tx of that area didn't really fix anything. I also had a deep burning neck/T1/shoulder pain so I was finally sent to a more advanced PT for a comprehensive evaluation.

between the PT & then DC treating the upper body issues the elbow & other down the chain pain subsided... Conclusion- the tight muscles and the forward head/shoulder postures were causing tensions & pulling to refer down the arm, hand & wrist.