A little background then to present and any suggestions would be appreciated.

Injured myself in 2003 while in the Army. I threw a rucksack (large back pack) on my back and right shoulder. I was unable to turn my head or lift anything, however x-rays at a ER said nothing was broken. I returned to duty and eventually started doing physical therapy for what they said was muscular and myofascial. Nothing series and went on muscle relaxers and did therapy. Nothing helped, TENS unit, Massage, therapy, chiropractor, nothing. So I decided to just live with it.

Moving on to 2009 I decided that it just wasn't getting better and still no one was able to help. They began to tell me it was my neck so I started going to therapy again and they put me in Traction... Wrong answer, made it soo much more worse to where now I have tingling and numbness down in my arm, it hurts just to sit at my desk and move my arm back and forth.

Decided I was no longer going to the VA hospital so I went to a pain management doc who told me I had disc bulges at C5 T1 but nothing serious. He stated I had an annular tear at my c4 and did a cortisone steriod injection. It didn't work. After 6 weeks I went back to him and he decided I had occipital nueralgia so he gave me 2 occiptal nerve blocs (one lower and one upper) They didn't rid me of my head aches or make anything better. I decided that was enough of that.. So I decided to go see a nerve doctor who told me my problem was in my shoulder. Shoulder doc didn't even look at my MRI and at this point I was missing half days at work to just go lay in bed, where I didn't have to move.

Decided to go see a shoulder doc who operated on my dad, this is where I first heard of TOS. He said not a lot of docs handle this and in OK there are only two that will see you, so I immeditely made an appt with the one who he said I should go see, I also begain finding out what this TOS was... NEW TO ME... after they did all their exam on me as well I was in severe pain and didn't want to move. I can do whatever they asked me to during the exam but shortly there after the pain and symptoms got worse, I was then having chest pains and my throat felt awful and I really had to concentrate on swollowing..


So now to present day... I went and saw Dr. Rayan in Oklahoma City. He confirmed that I did have TOS but here is where I have my problem... He said I have TOS because my neck muscles are weak and are collapsing on my thoracic outlet and I need to strengthen my neck muscles... Umm I did that in therapy and it didn't help (told him that) not to mention my neck is tighter than all get out and there isn't a muscle in there that doesn't hurt... He said that all my pain was coming from my shoulder and that neurlogical TOS doesn't cause pain.. I just nodded my head at this point because I was so confused since everything I read said the complete opposite...

I don't know who to go see that is close to OK and is worth the trip and that my insurance will pay for. I have pain from anywhere in my shoulder blade nots in between it and my back bone to pain in my fingers. I just hurt and I had a little glimpse of hope at an asnwer when I heard TOS and he just took all of it away when he said TOS doesn't cause pain....

HELP!

Have you found our useful sticky threads yet? up near the top of the main TOS threads list.
they will help you get a better grasp of sx, tx, & self care for TOS.

Our Useful Links - Websites, Articles & Polls -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread84.html
start with post #1 and go from there - it's a lot to absorb..

also the sticky on trigger points is a good one - http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread125577.html

Drs & PTs sticky-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread135.html

*if PT didn't address or resolve trigger points first - the muscles can't fully relax or recover.*