veinous TOS
 

Hey Everyone,

Just thought I would share my experience with TOS here for everyone who may be interested. Roughly a month ago I was hospitalized for a blood clot in my upper left arm and had a Thrombolysis at UPMC in Pittsburgh. I was told I would most definitely need surgery to correct the narrowing of the vessel structures in my thoracic outlet.

I somehow stumbled upon Dean Donahue at Massachusetts General and found that he is an expert in this field (I believe he told me he is co-authoring a book exclusively on the subject as well).

Anyway, I called him a few days after getting out of the hospital and he spoke with me for about 30 minutes over the phone, after which I decided to go out see him in Boston. I had an appointment about 2.5 weeks ago and I have to say, Dr Donahue is super knowledgeable and a really nice guy, you can tell he really cares about his patients and his work means a lot to him.

In my case (blod clot / now on blood thinners) and after reviewing my venogram from my prior surgery he recommended I have surgery as soon as possible. He also did I full examination of my strength and sensitivity in both arms, trying to determine if there was any other nerve involvement and how exactly the thoracic outlet compression was affecting me.

Anyway, I'm now scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning, wish me luck! I'll try to hop back on here afterwards and let you guys know how it goes.

Good luck! I wish you the best. Keep us posted. Thanks

You are in good hands with dr Donahue. Hoping for a speedy recovery!

this is the coolest thread i have seen. i wish you luck!

so many peeps are going to dr. d

once you go d, tos you never be

post-op
 

hey everyone,

I'm all done with surgery, everyone at this hospital is super awesome! Surgery went well, took about 3 hours, and required 2 incisions, one on top of shoulder, one in front of chest. Dr d said he removed tons of scar tissue from the nerve right next to the vein as well. he stopped by this morning and says everything looked good, and the webbing if veins in front if my TO seem to have diminished.

Post op has been not too bad. Woke up at maybe a 6 pain wise, but they gave me loads of morphine pretty quick(actually i gave myself too much with the button as I ended up getting sick - see below), from then on i haven't really been over a 4 pain wise. taking deep breaths has been pretty tough, and hurts pretty bad, both around the surgical site and in my diaphragm on my left side, but its been getting a lot better over the past 24hrs. honestly though, the worst thing has been nausea, which is just my own personal reaction to anesthesia and pain killers, its completely gone now though, and I was able to start eating and drinking today! i also have 1 drain at each of the incisions, but it hasn't collected too much bleeding, and "looks good" according to one of the fellows here.

I also have to mention, if you have this surgery, ask your doc about Tramadol, it was the best thing overall for comfort, unfortunately its pretty rough on your kidneys, so i don't think i'll be on it for more than 2 days.



Overall though, I feel SO much better than I thought I would at this point in recovery, I'm actually up walking around on my own, and typing lol!

If you guys have any more questions lemme know, haven't slept yet though, so going to take a nap now.

correction
 

Correction, the medicine is called toradol

update
 

Just thought I'd throw up one last update here, < 48 hours after surgery, I have the drains out (see pic below!) My pain really is not bad at all, moving, and taking deep breaths can be a bit painful, but as long as I don't over exert myself I'm doing just fine.

I was given a regimen of exercises to do (5 in total) that are pretty simple, and I'm able to walk around without any trouble.

Hopefully, I'm getting out of the hospital today, should be released taking just Tylenol and Oxycodone every 4 hours and Motrin every 8.

See, not so bad guys!

Giving a shout out here to Mass general, awesome staff here, and Dr Donahue, who's been back to follow up with me 3 times since the surgery, including today (a Saturday!)