I am a 45 man, I started having neck pain back in 1995 while in the US Navy. The navy dit xrays and mri's and all they thought I had was a vertibre in my neck that was not moving correctly. The did PT and traction on my neck. I also started to get tingling and "numbness" in my ring and little finger on both hands.

I got out of the USN in 2000 and filed for disability compensation with the Veterans Administration. I was initial rated at 20% due to the neck stiffness and Arthritis in my neck.

I was seeing a xray done for a normal work physical around 2002 and the xray technician came back in the room after taking my xray and asked if I had staves in my collar. She did not ask my to take off my shirt for the xray. We checked and saw that I did not have staves in the collar. I took a copy of the xray to the VA doctors and they decided that I had TOS due to extra 1st rib bilaterially.

The symtoms tingling and numbness and limited neck rotation at times, kept getting worse, until my doctor and I decided to remove the right 1 st rib to give the nerves more room in 2005. After the 2 hour surgery the doctor told me and my family that the nerve did not go straight through the muscles like it suppose to, rather is is wrapped all in and around the nerve. I had a huge improvement on my right arm. I only have problems with my right arm if I try and do something above horizontal with the right arm.

After I had this surgery my left arm starting to bother me more and more. numbness, burning, feeling like it was asleep for months on end. So in 2007 I decided to have the left 1st rib removed. I had relief for about a month then it came back hard. I then read an article about how the minor pectorial muscle could be pinching the nerve, I talked to my pain doctor and he gave me a shot in the mucle and the pain went away almost instantly. So I had my left minor pectorial muscle detached in 2009. I had relief for about 3 months, then the symptoms started coming back more and more. My right arm is still almost normal, but weak, my left arm hurts me almost of the time now.

I have also developed athritis in both shoulders due to the not moving my shoulders fully.

So I have 3 scars on my shoulders and chest from the surgeries and stll in alot of pain. I can not let my arms stay in one position very long or they start aching from the athritis, but If I move them to much the TOS kicks in. Especially the left. For the past 5 year the majority of the work I do has been on the computer so that make everything worse. I have a request for increase in my disability from the VA, and I am starting to think, if it is increase of just giving up working and trying to survive this pain. I cannot stand not being busy so If I do this it will be a big change. I am sitting here, almost in tears because my left are is burning and I had my arm just barely touching a notepad and I had to move the notepad cause it felt like a knife cutting my forearm.

sorry if this was a long post, had to get some of this off my chest. which hurts all the time from the TOS and surgeries. I have routine stress tests annually and had a left and right heart cath this year cause I have two of the symptoms of a heart attach almost daily.

Mark.