hi all,

saw a vascular dr this week and he said that he thinks its more likely that i have neuro tos than vascular.....he said neuro tos can cause things like cold hands etc?....

however he did a check of my pulse with arms in neutral and arms in the stick em up position and other positions and said that there is a slight reduction in my pulse on the right side - i also told him i get occasional cramping pain along my inner forearm.....so he is sending me for a doppler test.

to any of you who have had this test....do they put you into many symptom provocative positions - are they very sucessfull if there is only a mild reduction in pulse.....

In my experience, they run the test on both arms in multiple positions so they can compare the results. Are they sending you to a doppler imaging facility or does the vascular surgeon have an in-house technician who performs the study?

I had the doppler done in 2000.

It's not painful. Just a probe instrument placed at your pulses. Beep... beep. raise your arm up... no beep, or faint beeping till no beep.

Just a diagnostic tool. No cure or fix and no pain.

Hope you're negative.

not sure if its in house or not - i am waiting for an appointment letter so think that will explain a bit more

i hope its negative too - he seems to think that neuro tos can cause things like cold hands, which is the main vascular type symptom....

hmmm...doppler test. Never had it done in all these years & gaggle of docs. Very interesting.

j


Tracey,

My computer is acting up, as is my TOS. BUT, I think I wrote about doppler testing on my tests below (updated every year) and it's number 5. It does NOT hurt me at all as it is just radar or pulsatintg light moved through the veins to make sure their are no blood clots

So it looks like to me you have a good guy who is checking out both vascular and neuro symptoms. Please post often so we may dissuage your fears.

God's healing to you.

Tam

I have neuro TOS and i get the cold blue hands all of the time. Not just vascular conditions cause it, it can also be caused by your sympathetic nervous system being out of whack.

Ah, cant believe i have never realised that!......just read this on a website after googling sympatheric nervous system and neuro TOS.....


Raynaud phenomenon, hand coldness, and color changes may also be seen, usually due to an overactive sympathetic nervous system as opposed to ischemia.

I only get hand coldness and colour changes on my problematic side - the right hand side....can this be raynaud's or sympathetic nervous system being overactive - OR will either of these things cause hand coldness on both sides?......

Thanks Tam, yeah i have a good pain cons and vascular cons now so heading in the right direction at last!! The vascular dr initial opinion is that its neuro based problem but will check vascular to be sure, having read trixlynn's repsonse i now see what he meant when he said that coldness can be caused by neuro tos. .....but glad doppler will check for blood clots too as had been quite worried about that....

Both of my hands turned greenish/blue a few weeks ago, my thenar to thumb tip and my fingers with the my palms of my hands spotted white with red like a baskket weave patern and the veins coming from my wrist were swollen as well as the veins in my thernar area. I took photos, it was really quite a scare. I had no increase in numbness or pain and no temperature change. They were just greenish blue. I made an app w/ my doc. and he set me up with some blood tests and doppler testing. Venous doppler was just the operator running an ultrasound wand up from the neck down the arm and a few squeeezes of the first to check blood flow and to rule out venous thrombosis. The arterial test consisted of three blood pressure cuffs on each arm. One at he wrist, one at he forearm and one above the elbow. Each cuff is inflated one at at a time and then a BP reading is logged in he computer. The results are not in yet. I believe the arterial is done by computer evaluating and reading the stats. My hand turned blue during the venous test because it had to be laid out at shoulder height to get the vein on the inside of the arm. But stilll no temperature change.....