hi im laurie. injured 4 years ago at work, off for two. TOS caused me to adopt a lean to compensate for not being able to support my shoulder and i a strain of my sacroilliac joint. WC sceduled surgical consult for TOS but my primary doc is telling me never to allow them to operate! Confused as how to proceed! I just want my life back

Try to get the name of the surgeon they are sending you to & Google/search to find out his ratings & specialties.

Do you have a wc atty on your side - a very good one ?

Can you tell a little more about the injury or list your symptoms, we might be able to suggest other options? not too many names, dates or details since you have an active claim.

Do you know if you have vascular (arterial or venous) - or nerve TOS?
or more one than the other?

You don't have to do any surgery that a wc doctor suggests and especially if not a expert surgeon.

Vascular thoracic outlet resulting from repeative overhead movements, confirmed by dopper. I do have an attorney. Ive been very lucky that both my primary doc and the AME have always agreed on my diagnosis.
i have the same pain most people do one here, so ill spare everyone the classic TOS symptoms I get about three hours sleep a night total due to waking from pain and numbness. my right fingertips, measure a full inch closer to the floor than my left. developed (according to my doc) an SI joint strain because of the droop in my shoulder . frozen shoulder on my effected side, and tennis elbow. tendonitis on my left arm ( stopped using the right, hurts too much).
surgery has been suggested because of the nature of my employment. I would not be allowed to return to my chosen career field with TOS restrictions suggested by both my doc and the AME ( no lifting of 25lbs, no overhead lifting, ect).
So i see two choices, take a chance with a risky surgery ( dopples should TOS begining on my left side now as well), or learn how to do something else i was really good at my job

Well the plus side is that Vascular TOS surgery usually does have a much better improvement %.

Have you had any expert PT or any other body work therapy to correct the si strain & leaning?
If postures are a part of the problem body work of some sort may give some relief.

If you decide to have surgery, be sure it is a highly qualified surgeon doing it.

We have a sticky thread listing TOS docs , and there are others out there now , but the list was mainly made up in 2006-08 and only updated a few times since.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread135.html
useful sticky-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread84.html

Where are you guys (you and Nospam) getting your data on the high success rate of vascular TOS surgeries? What's posted here only?

A 2009 pub med article -
(in the useful sticky thread post #82)

[Half (50%) of the neurogenic patients and 77% of the venous patients returned to full-time work or activity within the study follow-up, with half of them doing so by 4 months and 75% of them by 5 months.]

and
[Neurogenic and venous TOS patients returned to full-time work/activity within the same length of time postoperatively. However, neurogenic patients required more secondary interventions]


There's probably more and updated articles, I haven't searched for them the last few years.

Started a new thread for this topic here-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread168265.html