Besides the scalenectomy that I had in 1991, I've also had two lower back surgeries. One in 1990 that was a flop, and another one in 1994, that turned out pretty good. Joe Montana's Doc did that one. But ever since then, I've still had lower back and leg pain. That, along with the upper body pain from the TOS, has made sitting very difficult and painful. I mounted a TV on the ceiling in the bedroom, so I spend a lot of time lying in bed and watching TV. It's way more comfortable than trying to sit.

One of the benefits I'm starting to notice from all my stretching, is that sitting is starting to get more comfortable, which has me pretty excited. It's really hard to go places and do things when you can't sit comfortably. Many times I've flared myself up, just because I sat in an uncomfortable chair for too long, or rode in somebody's car that had uncomfortable seats. Most of the time I just stand, and sometimes people get kind of weird about it. They think I'm uncomfortable because I'm standing, and it makes them nervous or something.

I'm hoping if I keep all this stretching up, the sitting will keep getting easier. Just that, would be a huge quality of life improvement for me.

The more I stretch and do this Intu-flow, I can feel the layers and pockets of tension gradually getting smaller. It's pretty neat. I'm actually having a lot of fun with it now. In the beginning, say the first 8 or 10 months, I actually dreaded adding new stretches because it was so painful afterwards. Everything would just get so tight and inflamed later in the day, from the stretching.

I'm starting to see now how tight and stuck together my muscles really were. It's kind of like unthawing a bag of frozen chicken parts. The more twisting, turning, and rocking back and forth I do, the easier they come apart. It's the same thing with muscles. I'm learning to play around and hit them from as many different angles as I can. Sometimes that's what it takes to get a muscle to release.

As things heal, I'm also finding that I can spend a lot more time during the day stretching and it's making things go faster. My body is starting to recover from the stretches alot faster. It's also getting easier to stretch the tight areas because I have some slack to work with. In the beginning everything was so tight, I had no side to side movement in my joints.

Does anyone get real bad inflamation after doing these streches?

I did the shoulder and neck ones and wow, the areas got very imflamed afterwoods. Is that normal? and is that a good sign or bad sign?

Also how often are you meant to do these streches? a few times a week or ?

thanks

The inflammation is normal, especially when you're first starting out. It's because you're stretching tight, injured tissues that aren't used to it. It's probably best to let the inflammation calm down before you do it again. Also, you may have done too much. In the beginning, less is better. If you do too much you'll get discouraged and quit because of the pain afterwards. I try to do these daily now, but in the beginning I waited for the inflammation to calm down before I did them again. Even now, sometimes I over do it and have to let things rest for a few days.

Everything on my left side(nonsurgical side) is still tighter than the right side. Shoulder, arm, back, hip and leg, everything all the way down. If I reach overhead with my left arm, sometimes I get a sharp pulling pain in my left hip. It works the other way too. The other day I was sitting in a chair doing some leg stretches and little while later my left arm started hurting a lot. I couldn't figure why. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me, stretching my left leg must have pulled on things in my shoulder and arm. There's been other times I've noticed this too.

The lesson here is everything in the body is connected. When you've had problems for a lot of years, like I have, one part of the body starts to affect another part, and that part can affect another part, and so on, so and on. It's kind of a domino effect. Like Scott Sonnon says, " The human body is one big myofascial matrix", and this is a perfect example of that.

I seem to be making progress on both sides. My flexibility is gradually improving and I'm noticing more veins in both of my hands that weren't there before, so I'm assuming my circulation is improving, which is a good thing. Also, as the pockets of tension get smaller, my pain level is starting to drop a little bit, but it varies from day to day, of course.

On the surgical side I used to get a lot of burning and redness on the right side of my face, my neck, my right ear, and my forearm and hand. It was pretty painful and uncomfortable. In the beginning, the stretching made that a lot worse but it was just something I had to deal with. That seems to be improving a lot though. It did happen about a month ago when I stretched my neck too hard, but if I'm careful it's not too bad.

The nonsurgical side is still tighter than the other side. I have some pain that starts under my arm and goes down the inside of my elbow, but it has really improved a lot from the stretching and joint mobility exercises. Also, this arm doesn't go overhead as easily. If I reach too much, I can feel a pulling sensation in the left side of my neck. I'm assuming that's where the nerves pass through the scalenes. I have to be kind of careful doing overhead movements or I end up twanging the nerves.

After this many years, I have no idea how much I can improve from this, but I plan to just keep chipping away every day and see what happens.

Besides having TOS, I also have fibromyalgia. When I first started stretching about 15 months ago, I came across this website.http://www.releasefibromyalgia.com/s...romyalgia/#how

This lady says that she cured her fibromyalgia with stretching and it took her about 4 or 5 years, so it's a very slow process. She also thinks that fibromyalgia is basically muscles that are too tight, and I agree with her, in my case anyway. When the muscles get too tight, the nervous system gets out of whack and it causes pain throughout your body.

She also said that she used gentle yoga type stretches and held them for up to 20 minutes at a time. All the stretching I've been doing involves movement, and I never hold a stretch because it flares me up, but it's working for me. So which style of stretching is better? I think you have to experiment and figure out what works best for you. Just because something works for someone else, doesn't mean it's the best way for you. We're all different.

I just thought I'd put this in for comparison. I know some people here have done, or do, the Edgelow protocol. I've done some of it myself, but I never could get to the point where I could do all the exercises. I improved a little bit with it, but I'm making much better progress with the things I'm doing now.

I pulled the Edgelow tape out and watched it a couple of days ago because I thought maybe there might be something on there that I might want to add to my routine, but no. I'm already doing total body mobility exercises. Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, hips, knees, ankles, and feet. I didn't see anything that was better than what I'm already doing, and I'm doing it all free hand. I don't need all those foam rollers and stuff. I'm a big believer in keeping it simple.

Sharon Butler says," Your best chance of a 100% recovery comes from making up your own stretches" and I've taken that to heart. I really enjoy making up my own stretches and coming up with new ideas. By constantly experimenting it keeps things fresh and fun. Enjoying what you're doing is half the battle, if you're bored with what you're doing you'll stop doing it.

Coop:

Thanks for the article on the Fibro lady. Almost a year ago, I did the Child's Pose one day for just a few minutes and my thoracic got very irritated, but it felt good while doing it. I'd been doing Edgelow stuff for so long, getting no where and it felt good to be concave, rather than stretched back all the time. I've had a lot of manual therapy since then and tried the supported Child's Pose you posted. I can do it now . So far, I can hold it for about 10 minutes. It's not my back which hurts, but my feet and knees. I need to put some extra cushion down.
This may be a really dumb question, but are you doing this Scott Sonnon program off the You Tube videos or did you buy a set online?
Agree with you about finding your own thing. I've dabbled in it all and spent to much time on some things. For me, manual therapy, which they told me not to do, is what's saving me, plus my own little routine of stretches, breathing and audios.

Anne

Hi Anne, I'm glad that you're finding that fibromyalgia information helpful. That's cool that you are able to do that pose now. A little bit at a time.

I started out doing the intu-flow program on youtube, but several months ago I ended up buying the dvds from Amazon.Com. I'm hoping to get my wife to try some of it. She has chronic headaches and neck problems and I'm hoping it might help her. So far I haven't been able to get her to do much of it though. It's hard to get people to try new things.