I haven't been on these boards in years, and I'm shocked at the number of you who are now having surgery to correct TOS... and QUICKLY after being diagnosed! It's incredible!

I want to know what kind of insurance you have, and how on EARTH you've convinced doctors that there is something wrong with you, gotten an actual diagnosis in a timely fashion, AND gotten scheduled for surgery with actual people who know what to do for you... And it seems like most of you have done that within a year?? That's INCREDIBLE.

Blows my mind. AND it ****** me off. 10 years ago when UCLA diagnosed me, I'm convinced that had they surgically removed my problem THEN, I would have been WAAAAAAAY better off NOW. Instead, I've suffered, and suffered, and suffered through 10 WASTED years of my young adult life, afraid to have children, broke from all the money I spend on chiropractors, osteopaths, massage, etc., and here I am, ten years later, thinking what a stupid waste of a life this has been, all because nobody was willing to do anything to fix this when they actually had a good chance to fix it. Now I'm so incredibly screwed up, they could probably never fix it, and I'm just going to die a slow TOS death for the rest of my life... and I'm only 32 years old!! Seriously, people!!

HOW ARE YOU PEOPLE GETTING THIS DONE?

I had a neck sprain TOS flare up so bad 3 months ago I was nearly paralyzed again, and I can't even get a damn MRI of my neck. AND I can't get rid of it. They just let me suffer, suffer, suffer... Health insurance was SO much better 10 years ago when I had my bp mri - I can't even imagine EVER getting that scan approved again... so HOW ARE YOU PEOPLE GETTING SURGERY? It seems IMPOSSIBLE to me.

At this point, I'm ready to perform a self-inflicted rib resection. At least a self-inflicted scalene block - that just takes a needle and some lidocaine, right? How about a home-made catheter that just keeps lidocaine constantly pumping into my scalenes??? I could probably honestly manage doing that to myself. Anything is better than thinking about living with this for another 10 years, and it just getting worse, and worse, and nobody being willing to do anything about it. My current insurance doctors are a bunch of CLOWNS who won't even acknowledge the fact that I have a serious problem.

My advice: If you have the chance to get this surgically corrected, don't even hesitate. I'd rather have a surgery-gone-bad and suffer immediately, than die a slow, slow TOS death like I have. Honestly, DO IT. Or 10 years from now, you'll remember reading this post from me, and you'll be regretting not listening to me. And if your surgery does have complications, just remember that it wouldn't be any better if you waited or decided NOT to have surgery. Your life would just suck slowly, over time, anyway. But AT LEAST you've had the opportunity to TRY to fix it.

My long-time friends who haven't had surgery - is anyone with me on this? Are any of you ******, too?

I used to be the positive one, right? I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOdone with this now!

ARGH!

~ Jenny