Wow sorry to hear that, it doesnt sound fun

So did the Physical therapy and ect help at all? Or did it just make it worse?

I had lots of PT over several years and it always made me worse. I also did deep tissue myofascial massage and that flared my nervous system. I've also tried biofeedback, acupuncture, yoga, meditation, abdominal breathing, Cognitive Based Therapy, Feldenkreis. I've tried nearly every conservative treatment except chiropractic.

I had my right rib removed when the pain became intolerable and I found myself in the hospital with stroke symptoms smore times than I care to remember. The simple act of raising my arms shoulder level or more would set me off. Surgery helped in that respect, pain persists but I am no longer passing out and in danger of a stroke. I suspect I will never really get my life as I knew it before back. I take it one day at a time. I can drive for about a half hour, still cannot keyboard, swim, bowl, ride a bike, play tennis, etc. I would do the surgery again if given a choice.

What kind of stroke symptoms did you have, and how badly?

I'm waiting (months) for doctors office and insurance to quit dinkin' around to get something done (trying not to go straight to surgery, or minimize how much gets chopped out, got arterial and venous tos from keloid scar tissue from car accident, etc). Meantime, things are getting worse and worse, now if I even bend over enough to reach something sitting on the couch, I get dizzy, ears ringing, vision goes funky in right eye, short of breath, feel just "wrong", end up sittting down and waiting for it to calm. Shortness of breath is happening nearly every time I get up now, feels like my chest is tight, hard, hurts, breathing just not really working; dizziness is becoming persistent, couple of times I have gone to mirror to see if both sides of my face still match, stick out tongue (sometimes it is a little off to one side), but I don't have a local doctor worth a damn, and the local ER is just scary (bad). So I sit down and wait for things to calm and release and get back to normal. Very frustrating, but now happening so much I'm wondering if I should be getting worried, push for quicker or more drastic action...

But then, I still wonder, if this is caused by keloid scar tissue from all the physical trauma from the accident, what will prevent more scar tissue from resulting from surgery, and ultimately just make things worse? But, can I wait, or is all this indicating something needs to be done now.....is why I'd like to know what you were experiencing so I have some way to judge how bad off I am. TOS doctor is nearly 200 miles away. Locals have proven to be clueless. I'm pretty much on my own.