How long do your bad flares last?
 

I was just curious, if you guys have a bad flare how long does it normally last?
I'm having one now, that is a full body flare, arms, legs, back, everything. It started a couple of weeks ago and it's finally starting to taper off. I would say, a bad flare for me, can last two or three weeks.

Depends on what I have done.

If I am doing something *new* (which I have learned never to do, haha), and I can feel something bad right away and I STOP RIGHT AWAY, than 2 weeks minimum.

But, one time I did something new I thought I could do and I only did the thing for 2 hours, and it took literally 6 months for me to calm down.

I have been able to get some of them down to just a few days, but normally at least a week is normal. That is with huge self care / not doing anything in order to get things down. I am amazed at how much is required to get things to calm down. You almost really just need to not use your arms at all at that point.

TOS flare-ups
 

Depends on how severely aggravated nerves get. Usually 2-3 weeks. But some have lasted months. One PT had me doing scapula stabilizing exercises that engaged my neck and upper traps. Took 3 months to recover from that.

TOS flare-ups
 

As others have noted, the "no pain, no gain" approach is the worst to observe for TOS sufferers, in my opinion. A supposed star PT at MGH (part of Dr. Donahue's team) caused a severe flare-up that lasted about a month when she insisted that I continue doing shoulder shrugs during a session. I had stopped b/c of immediate symptoms caused by engaging traps and neck muscles, explained why I stopped and she told me to "keep doing the shrugs." Stupidly, I followed her direction.

Unfortunately, I think many of us have had bad experiences with therapists.

the worst for me was when a doctor had me put my hands on my head for five minutes. within 1 second my blood was gone.

once i started shaking, he had me stop, probably 3 minutes in. i didn't want to cause myself pain but I WAS SO DESPERATE FOR SOMEONE TO BELIEVE SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH ME.

Afterwards, I was so in need of blood that I could not bend my arms. I had to stand in the waiting room waiting for his colleague to see me. I had to move some chairs around in order to have space to stand out of the way. The receptionists started gossiping about me - I look completely healthy - young. But was in so much pain I had no other choice but to stand there for 30 minutes before even moving or doing anything with my body.