Hi there, Chroma,

I've been following up with his office every couple of weeks to check on where the insurance company situation stands. The next time I call, I will ask how much they are without insurance. I'm not sure if it depends on where you get the injection(s), but hopefully they can give me a ball park figure.

Are you thinking of you getting Botox as well?

I saw Dr. Donahue last March. He recommended the botox injections. Warned me that it can take weeks to months to get it approved by the insurance.

Called the office to check on the insurance stuff every few weeks, as they did immediately reject them. Was told it was in the works.

Until 3 months later when I called my INSURANCE to check on them. Found out they had never had a single thing sent from Donahue's office in all that time. Called them twice again before talking to Kathy at the Salem office, she's the one that does the insurance stuff. She tried to tell me it was the insurance holding things up, until I assured her I had had several long phone calls to my insurance verifying that they had received NOTHING from her. She suddenly stopped arguing with me and said "in any case" she would try to have it done the next day. Didn't hear from her for a week. Then she called and said they (office) had done their thing, it was rejected, and *I* had to file the appeal. Called the insurance, they said the DOCTOR could do the appeal, since it required lots of medical data, and all I had to do was send a letter giving doctor's office permission to appeal on my behalf.

Meanwhile, accidentally saw Donahue's report to my local doctor, saw he was referencing an MRI that was not mine (I hadn't had one before seeing him, and had even mentioned that to him while there, asking if I should have one, and he said no, not yet), and whosever it was had a cervical disc problem I do not, and so the whole report reference pain shooting from my neck down my arm, that I also do not have. My husband was with me during the whole exam & consult. He heard every word, and I did not, NOT, describe anything like those symptoms.

When I finally got him to call me to tell him of this mistake, several weeks later, he dumped me. Apologized for the mistake, but refused to take responsibility for it. If we "didn't connect" so badly that he got it all wrong, he said, he was not the doctor for me.

So, after blowing 4 months of my life, I was back to square one. No doctor, no clear picture of the problem, no treatment plan, no nothing. Looked up a dr in NYC and started over at the end of August (took that long to get an appt).

We made no summer plans because, supposedly, at any time we could get the call that I needed to go back to Boston for the botox injections or other procedures or surgery. Foolishly wasted my kids' entire summer on completely false hopes of getting something done for me.

Now, I now lots of people have wonderful things to say about Donahue. And I did too, until that final phone call. I thought he was thorough and careful and concerned. Until he dumped me when confronted with the mistakes in his report. I don't know why everything went so terribly wrong in my case. I don't know if he himself is aware that the months of getting insurance approval may be actually months of inactivity on his staff's part.

But I would recommend calling your INSURANCE company to check on the botox injections, not his office. And it wouldn't hurt to get a copy of whatever he sent back to your primary (or other) doctor to make sure he got things right.

Sorry to be casting a shadow on the guy, but I sure wish I'd had a heads-up that he/they needed checking up on. Between waiting for him, and getting to the new dr and then the treatment he recommended, I lost April through September of this year.

Winic1,
I wonder how the wrong MRI got into your file?
If it wasn't fwd from one of your drs by accident, then his staff is really messing up...
Plus the non filed insurance paperwork....
How annoying when this happens....

Did any of your other drs send anything at all to Donahue?

That would be great.

Yeah my progress seems to have plateaued. While I have experienced numerous improvements, I still have a level of dizziness that I find unacceptable. I need to start planning out my next moves. Probably vascular appt and something like an MRA are next.

Nope. I, ME, sent him 8 discs ahead of time, and about 15 reports, and he asked me to bring 3 more discs with me at my appointment. These discs were copies I, ME, made of the originals, at my home. And verified each one before labelling it and sending/giving it to him. (I have copies of every scan and report I've had, found it easier to bring them with me than keep trying to have things sent on time. I have a typed inventory listing of each and every one, which are all numbered for easy reference. This list is 3 pages long now.)

But he insisted he had a disc with a cervical MRI from November 2010 with my name on it. Blamed my local hospital for sending it to him.

after talking to him, I called the local hospital testing center and checked. They never sent him anything, not one paper, not one scan. As I knew, because I never signed a release or anything like that. They also have NO MRI for that date for me, of anything, let alone my cervical spine.

When I called his office the next day to cancel the future followup appointment I already had booked, the secretary asked me why. So I told her, he messed up, he dumped me. She said wait, and pulled my file, and began reading off every disc she was finding in it. No cervical MRI disc. No kidding. Because it wasn't mine. Because I never had one done (until 2 months after seeing him, and he never was sent that one.)

Suspect he had someone else's file/scan open on his computer when he started going through mine, and failed to notice it had someone else's name on it. After all, the patient name and info is imbedded right in the pictures!. Or else he mixed up discs while looking at them, again failed to notice someone else's name, and then they got sorted out when putting things away. Dunno. Hope he didn't mess up diagnosis/interpretation on the other person (who has significant disc problem at C6) like he did on me, or someone else got screwed in the deal, also.

Dunno. But having recently encountered such a huge error, and lack of action from his office re the insurance, I would highly suggest you all keep outside checks going on them, don't just trust the offices there.

The estimate they gave me for the botox was around $800. You get a discount for paying up front (the day before), I think it was 10%, might be more (I'm remembering 10%, but then I'm also remembering it was $200 cheaper to pay up front, which would be 20%. Dunno, and unfortunately, no longer have any reason to care. Sorry.)

I have a cervical rib and have had symptoms since I was a teenager, probably when the cervical rib was growing and attaching to my first rib. I was finally diagnosed in my early thirties. At that time, I was told it was "up to me" and advised that the cure can be worse than the diagnoses, ever since I have been managing my symptoms with yoga practice (for which i have gained a 1/2 inch in height) and massage and acupuncture when I have flare-ups. This last February, I was rear-ended and suffered whip-lash and seat-belt compression across the collarbone, so I revisited my issues with new doctors. Over the last 5 years, I have had 3 surgeons tell me to get the surgery, one say no, and to PTs tell me no. But here's my issue with your situation: you had no symptoms until your 40s.

I honestly believe that your body-building (combined with having a rib-extension) has had more to do with your developing your problem, then anything else. It's time to bulk-down, focus more on stretch principles and look into Postural Restoration (PRI). This is in the US, but it's an amazing approach that I think all non-cervical rib TOS'ers should do.

This is assuming that you do not have arterial/venous blood supply issues. I have bi-lateral cervical ribs. My left side, I can cut off my blood supply just by raising my arm into certain positions, my right side has none of these issues. I am likely getting Sx on the left and (hopefully) never on the right. I am going to one more PRI training this weekend, and this will be a great factor in determining what I am going to do. But, my Dr's have said this is the one and only reason they are suggesting the Sx. If I didn't have blood supply issues, I wouldn't even consider Sx.

I think I will end up getting the Sx because over the last 30 years, it has gotten progressively worse, and even Jack Lelanne's body was not as tall and straight when he died than when he was in his prime. So, for me, it's a matter of getting it while I am relatively young (39), very fit, and able to recover versus doing it when I am in my 60-80s and healing less well.

For you, it might be as simple of a solution to return your body to a more "normal" stasis. Very few body-builders spend equal time stretching. I am also curious if you have used artificial enhancement techniques? I don't need an answer, most won't admit to it, but you know and this might also be a factor to consider or eliminate from your practice.

Good luck, hope that helps in your equation.

Hmmm..... does anyone know if a cervical rib can just grow and form? I am really curious!

From what I understand it's not something spontaneous. It's something congenital. That said, it can osteosclerosis over time.

Concolor,

Thanks for the detailed response.

I'm interested in what you've investigated in terms of postural restoration? Is PRI a specific place you can look into this? Get help?

It's important to understand that once I learned that I had TOS I started doing all kinds of stretching. More specifically, anterior and middle scalene stretches, pec minor stretching, and diaphramic breathing / posterior neck crunches on a foam roller. My symptoms decreased immediately from say, a 3-5 on the pain scale to a 1 level. And oddly enough, my shoulder impingement cleared up as well. There's no doubt I was tightly wound up.

Now, I've continued with this stretching routine, but I can't seem to get over the hump.

Additionally, I feel like "postural stress" is more of a culprit at this point vs. going to the gym. My job is getting more intense and I find that when I'm in the office everything starts to flare a bit. Then when I work at home, and have time to go to the gym, I actually feel better.

All that said, a gym injury started this whole thing -- a latpulldown injury just seemed to trigger it.

I'm a lot better than where I was a year ago. The pain is more than manageable, but I really want to finish this off. I think it could be a combination of things that allow this to happen: A botox injection to "break the cycle," maybe some ongoing postural restoration efforts, tissue work (that another poster mentioned), and maybe altering my gym efforts.

It is odd that this TOS emerged after 40 and it seems that now that the area has been "excited" it doesn't want to leave.

Thanks.

KY

Let me know how your progress goes with the botox.

It's been 2+ weeks since I was with Dr Donahue and I will be checking in on Monday to see where this is. Understanding winci's problems with the process, I'm hoping we can learn from this and avoid some snafus.

KY