Thanks so much to both of you!

I am 2 years out after surgery RT rib and scalenectomy. No real improvement. Have RT upper arm swelling and sensitivity around elbow that drives me nuts then some days it just is totally numb.
I am no where near a TOS SPECIALIST just dealing with every day PCP
who is so complacent about everything. Only meds I am on is Neurotin 600mgs a day even I know this is not even a theraputic dose.

Dr says to me at last visit as he casually leaves the room Oh by the way I noticed you have winging of both scapula.

I replied would that cause the stabbing feeling I get sometimes when I reach for things of try to use my arms?

DR has no reply already down the hall to next patient in next exam
room.
HELP!

Andismom

Adhesions are something I don't really hear talked about much, on here, or even by doctors and therapists. I've never been to a therapist who had me do much more than general stretching or lying on some foam rollers to try and stretch the chest area out. I know many others have tried that stuff without much luck. The more I stretch and do this Intu-Flow I'm realizing that it takes movement to stretch out the joints and free up the adhesions. The movement also brings nutrition to the joints so they can heal.

If you think about it it makes a lot of sense. The joints are where the nerves tend to get impinged. I hear many people on here, including myself, that have wrist and elbow pain and I don't think that all of starts in the neck. I read somewhere that there's 10 or 12 places that the nerves can be impinged from the neck down to the hand. By doing a total joint mobility program like this I'm hoping that over time the nerves will get freed up in some of these areas.

A colleague of Sharon Butler's has a book out with similar type of movements for body stiffness, restrictions, adhesions.. I just placed a request for the book in my local library.

Some online info-
http://www.undulationexercise.com/
some vid clips- http://www.undulationexercise.com/exercises.htm
[Excerpted from
"Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation"
By Anita Boser, LMP, CHP]

Thanks Jomar. I added the videos to my favorites. Some more things to try out. That hand and finger one feels pretty good.

This is another site I found ages ago that I liked.
It's listed in the useful stickys post #1 - but I'd like to add it onto this thread also.

http://www.bodymindresources.com/Class1/Class1lab.htm

Here's the main page for all info/overview-
http://www.bodymindresources.com/

Thanks for all the above info

http://physicalliving.com/exclusive-...hed=1&ids=2953
I thought this interview was really interesting. He talks about a lot of things that I've never heard before. It's pretty long but the part where he's talks about joint mobility starts 24 minutes into it.

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coracobrachialis.png

That's a muscle I'd never heard of before. I had to look it up.

Interestingly, it's a muscle that is very tight on my left side.(Nonsurgical side) However, it has loosened up a lot with the joint mobility exercises.

The nice thing about joint mobility is I've learned to just concentrate on trying to get full range of motion from each joint, and combination of joints. I don't worry about this muscle, or that muscle, and since I'm using movement, the muscles seem to strengthen themselves as they release and get healthier. Scott Sonnon has taught me to think of the body as one big muscle that works together, rather than a lot of separate parts.

Since I've started stretching and joint mobility, I haven't been to any doctors or therapists. I've been to my share of them over the years and they haven't been much help. Most of them didn't want to deal with me anyway. They just had no idea what to do for me.

One physical therapist that I saw told me," I was one of the tightest people she's ever seen, and I could improve a lot, but I was going to have to figure it out on my own." I was kind of passed around like a hot potato.

So I figure now that I'm making good progress by myself, why waste my time and money on doctors and therapists?

Scott Sonnon isn't a doctor or physical therapist, but I've gotten more useful and helpful information from listening to him than just about anyone else. It kind of makes the medical community look bad.