Cool. Good luck with your surgery.

Wow! I can turn my head
 

I don't do much driving, but I did some today and I noticed that I can turn my head to check traffic now! I haven't been able to do that since I had surgery 21 years ago. I'm not going to get too excited because it seems like every time I do, something goes wrong, but I am feeling optimistic. I love this joint mobility stuff!

That's great! Appreciate every milestone, no matter how small it may seem. Forward progress is forward progress.

Looking down is getting better too
 

On my last post I mentioned I can turn my head better now. Now, looking down, seems to be getting less painful too.

I did a post about how bad looking down was a while back. I just looked it up and it was a year ago, so it shows how slowly this joint mobility stuff works. I just keep chipping away at it daily. I've been doing it for 28 months now. I've had TOS for more than 30 years now, so it would probably go much faster if you're younger.

I think the reason my neck is starting to move better is my upper back muscles are finally loosening up. I think they were all stuck together, and a lot of the rear neck muscles tie in with them. There's a lot of layers of muscle in the upper back and if they're stuck together it hurts, and you can't move well at all. They don't slide across each other properly. I used to think most of my pain was from damaged nerves and scar tissue, but now I think it's mostly "just" tight muscle fascia and adhesions.

The sounds of joint mobility
 

The last few weeks, I've been getting all these really loud pops, and cracks, when I do my exercises. When I reach overhead with my left arm, sometimes I get this weird ripping sound, sounds like someone pulling tape off of something. I guess it's just muscles coming apart. Crazy.

A few days ago my wife was in the other room and she heard this huge crack. She asked me if I was OK. It was just my shoulder popping, didn't hurt. Crazy stuff. I'm assuming it's good, if it doesn't hurt.

I get a kinds of popping when I roll neck or shoulders. The shoulders get a few loud crack or pop. I am told it is tendons rubbing against or ligaments or bone.

Movement is more effective than foam rollers
 

I came across this video where this Dr. explains that foam rollers don't release tight muscle fascia as well as movement. I agree with that, from my own experience. Foam rollers are overrated, in my opinion.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnYdz...CPvz3hhcque_ow

It has been helpful to me-but I see it as more of a trigger pt release technique. I use it at hom in addition to other exercises and physical therapy.

Lower back and legs
 

I think there's a few other people with lower back issues on here, so I'll put this in. I think sometimes after you've had TOS for a long period of time, it can start to affect your lower back and legs.

Sharon Butler says, "Fascia changes consistency due to injury, surgery or other trauma, like a car accident. The more time that has passed since the original trauma, the more likely it is that the restriction in the fascia has effected a larger and larger area."

I've had two lower back surgeries myself. One in 1990 and one in 1994. I've had chronic pain in my lower back in both legs, ever since.

At the end of last year, I flared my lower back up a really bad doing stretching exercises and had to go to the hospital several times. The pain was unbearable. They finally got it to calm down was some steroids and epidural.

Since then, I've been extremely careful when stretching my back and legs. The Intu-flow exercises have been working well for me at loosening up my hips and legs.

For about a month now, I've been walking 3 miles every morning wearing ankle weights. This helps get my heart rate up a little bit more, which I'm trying to do because I'm also recovering from a heart valve replacement six months ago. When I'm done, I do hip mobility exercises with the ankle weights on. The extra weight seems to help stretch my hips a little better. So far, (knock on wood) it hasn't been irritating the nerves in my legs.

I think a lot of the pain in my legs is from tight muscle fascia because it is improving with the mobility exercises. It's a slow process but I'm not seeing anyone else my age (50) posting much about improving after many years, so I think I'm on the right path. Everything I'm doing is pretty much old school, just simple movement and mobility exercises.

The most effective thing I have found for relaxing back muscles is somatics:

Hanna's landmark book:
http://www.amazon.com/Somatics-Reawa...dp/0738209570/

A book with better photographs and instructions:
http://www.amazon.com/Move-Without-P...dp/1402774591/

A DVD with the strange title of "Yummy Yoga" since there is no yoga an the DVD. It's all somatics:
http://www.amazon.com/Yummy-Yoga-Gen...dp/B00075K846/

It's neat stuff. Fun to learn.

Also, this small, sensible stretch set really opened up my back with no ill side effects:
http://www.amazon.com/Minutes-Pain-F...dp/0743476476/

The reviews for all of the above are informative.

HTH