I was just looking at the calendar and I realized it was 20 years ago, this month, that I had my scalenectomy. It was August 1991. I had no idea how much misery and pain that was going to cause me. I had never even heard of TOS at the time.

We owned a dairy, and that's how I got TOS, milking cows everyday. Squatting down and reaching underneath the cows is very uncomfortable. It was a classic case of repetitive strain injury. I had no idea why I was in pain all the time and I worked that way for 12 years before I was ever diagnosed.

Finally, I blew out some discs in my lower back and a physical therapist I was seeing noticed my hand was purple. He's the one that finally diagnosed me with TOS. I had no idea what that was since I had never heard of it.

I had the surgery and instead of getting better I felt terrible. Much more pain. It was the end of my working days.

It's been a little over 16 months since I started stretching, doing the Sharon Butler self-care program and the Intu-flow program, along with lot of stuff that I make up myself. I have to say, that even though I'm not pain free, I am feeling the best that I've felt, since that surgery 20 years ago.

I had actually given up on ever getting any better. I thought the damage was done. But now, I'm actually feeling cautiously optimistic, that maybe if I keep this up, I may have a chance of being a somewhat functional person again someday.

Sharon Butler says, "In any RSI(repetitive strain injury), there are hidden pockets of injured tissue that are hard to find and a challenge to feel. Most stretches will fail to find them for you."

I'm finding that the little Indian clubs that I bought are the perfect tool for finding these tight areas. Here's a link that shows Indian clubs being demonstrated.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reWVC...eature=related

I can't do all those movements yet but I can do a few of them, one arm at a time. Using both clubs at the same time takes a lot of coordination and I'm not there yet. Plus, my range of motion isn't that great so it's easier to focus on one arm at a time without hurting myself.

The first couple of months after I started using these, I got a lot of inflammation in my arms after but it seems to be getting less as time goes by. In fact lately, the more I use them, the better I seem to feel.

Yikes, I could never swing my arms around like that. Swinging my arm on the symptomatic side exacerbates my symptoms.

LOL. Yep, conventional wisdom hasn't gotten me far, so I'm starting to think outside the box.

I did a little bit with a 3 & 5 lb weights - missing the matching sets- due to a puppy I think...

the 5 lb weight was a bit too much for my R shoulder - it has some chronic strain or something - my R arm is stronger so I used the lighter weight in my L. L side did OK. I only did for 6 mins or so and did a swaying warm up.

I used one of the other video styles since the hand weights wouldn't work the same as the clubs.

It seemed to encourage me to tighten my core for stability.

I'm finding myself doing more circular and rotational movements lately, as I progress. I'm noticing that using the Indian clubs is helping to strengthen all the little rotator muscles in my shoulders, elbows, and wrists. My shoulders and arms feel better than they have a long time. They're getting looser and more flexible, and the pain in my elbows and wrists isn't as bad. Even the nerve pain on the inside of my elbow seems to be getting better.

Here's a link to some other rotational exercises I've been doing that are helping. I think this rotational stuff is really important. I don't know why therapists don't use more of it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZ99x6xH2k&NR=1

I've been having trouble with pain in my right heel. It's an ankle I sprained badly many years ago playing football. There seems to be a lot of scar tissue there and I think the nerve may be stuck in it. That's my unexpert opinion anyway. When you start doing this joint mobility you start to uncover old injuries you forgot about.

I've tried doing the Graston technique, that Jomar posted on here, a couple of times on it. I just used the handle of butter knife and some baby oil to massage the scar tissue and then I did some ankle mobility exercises after. It seems like the ankle feels a little looser but the pain is still there. Maybe I need to work on it some more.

My other idea is I bought a plastic container and 10 pounds of rice. I filled the container with rice and I put my foot in there and move it around. I just started this today. My hope is that the rice will massage the heel and loosen up the scar tissue. I've seen athletes use buckets of rice to condition their hands so I'm thinking maybe it will work for feet too. It doesn't hurt to try.

Ever since I had that scalenectomy 20 years ago, looking down causes me terrible pain. Not just at the time, but for a long while afterwards. It wasn't this way before the surgery, it got much worse after surgery.

Holding a book, or paper, and trying to read it is almost impossible. It just gets too painful. Also, a computer page that can't be scrolled will cause me pain, if I have to look down at the bottom of the computer screen to read it.

I was hoping this was something that would improve with all my joint mobility exercises, but so far it's not. I've improved in a lot of other areas but not here. I'm not really very confident that this will ever get much better.

It's been a little over 17 months now since I started this stuff. I'm still gradually improving. My flexibility is gradually getting better and my pain levels are not quite as bad. I still have pain, but there's no way I'd want to go back to where I started.

This is a very slow process. It's definitely a marathon. I've spent hundreds of hours stretching and working on joint mobility. Everyday I just keep working at it. My wife thinks I'm a bit obsessed with it, but I'm not getting any younger, more work means faster progress.

Intu-flow is a good gauge of where my problem areas are. If certain exercises are hard, those are the ones I need to work on. The easy ones don't do me as much good. I constantly change my routine to keep my body progressing and to keep myself from getting bored.

Any place the brachial plexus is touched by muscle (the entire length of it), it can be affected by muscle tension. BUT... only minimally except by the scalenes, pec minor and sometimes in axilla region by corocobrachialis.

Be careful working around the neck and in the armpit. Nerves, blood vessels--lots of stuff can be injured by even light pressure.

All this talk of stretching? Muscles themselves don't stretch--golgi tendon organ at the joint and muscle spindles in the belly of muscle protect the muscles from overstretch. What you're stretching, I think, is the fascial covering that binds muscles in bundles and the skin covering to muscles. The best way to do that IMO is with myofascial release. A forearm is pressed into a broad plane to the depth of slight tenderness; the therapist will hold there until the tissue in his direction of travel relaxes; he will take the sweep all the way down the muscle, adjust position and sweep the other direction-- MFR practitioner will hold wherever he encounters adhesion or a trigger point. Covering one quadrant of the back can take half an hour or more. MFR can be used on thighs, forearms, back, buttocks, chest. Full body MFR, 2-2.5 hours. But the results are miraculous.