Originally Posted by parbie

FYI Dr. Sanders in Denver no longer performs surgery. I was doing some research and found this out last week.

Originally Posted by jkl626

I saw Dr. Gelabart at UCLA today and he is by far my favorite Surgeon out of the 3 that are in L.A. A really caring and nice man. Fairly thorough although did not look at my mri's,just saw reports.Asked alot of questions.Kept saying "Interesting" when he was examining me He said that Dr. Jordan usually only refers patients to him that have failed his injections .etc, He saw no arterial and venous symptoms. Suggested I try Facet Block injections or Cervical Epidural just to rule out the disc bulge and stenosis being the cause of my pain before doing Surgery. He does Trasaxilary Rib Resection and partial scalenctomy.He thinks this is the superior way to go. says he has a 90% success rate. Once in a while a patient comes back to get a full scalenectomy. He says the scalpular pain only has about a 50% chance of getting resolved but arm pain is usually better. he didnt know statistics on the shoulder pain (Traps,pec minor) etc because not everyone has that pain so they dont keep track of that. He relys mostly on the scalene block test( They all do) so I would want to repeat that if I decide to proceed with surgery since I think it was questionable weather it worked or not. He didnt think Ahn's Angiogram or angioplasty test was a good idea,or that the MRA was necessary. he was so-so on a Mac or SSEP test.(Has anyone had either of these? Were they helpful in the Diagnosis? Where did you have them done?I'm particulary interested in the Mac,because my pec Minor is really tight.)
He gave me a 3 page doc on TOS which describes all the tests etc.

Originally Posted by jkl626

If I had to choose today I would go with Dr. Gellabart,but luckily I dont. i have been doing PT with Dr Ando(No-spams PT) and I am feeling better overall but have had a couple of flare-ups lately. i am going to give it a few more months and if I still cant go back to work by August or September I will
consider it again. Of course I go back and forth depending on how bad the pain gets.This summer i may check into the Denver Dr's or at least call Dr. Sanders on the phone.

Originally Posted by jkl626

I hate how I have to do these invasive injections just to rule something out. I was also told they could make things worse for the nerves and muscles by Dr. Gart(Pain Dr. at Cedars)

Originally Posted by nospam

I wasn't aware of this. I was always told that these injections were low risk, high reward.

Originally Posted by nospam

I wasn't aware of this. I was always told that these injections were low risk, high reward.

Originally Posted by Anne4tos

Another reason why TOS is still not solved, a consensus on diagnostic testing still can't be reached.

I'm a NoCal patient and I can't even find anyone here to give a scalene block. I've heard of someone near SF, who potentially gives them, but they're unrelated to any TOS expert in the area.

I've been told by multiple Doctors what JKL heard at Cedars. Sticking any needle or substance in the BP area and scalene triangle is not a good idea and they will not perform an injection. My scalenes showed as mildly hypertrophied on an MRi/A/N, so don't know if a block would have any effect on me....then again, another whole group of Doctors would throw my MRI away as hogwash.

Originally Posted by nospam

I was referring to cervical epidural and facet block injections. I don't think there is much to fear with these routine cervical procedures.