[LosingHope]

Hi. This is my first post; I've been scouring this board for the last week or so and have found more information here than I have in the last three years. I really hope someone has some helpful advice for me.

I am having a terrible time trying to find treatment. The doctors I've seen in my town (Tyler, TX) are pretty sure I need surgery and have basically washed their hands of me, saying that TOS is out of their realm of expertise (in the last 3 years I've gone through PT, nerve blocks, MRIs, MRAs, CTs, CT angiograms, U/S, esophageal ECG, traction, x-rays more drugs than I can even recall without looking at my list, and I'm in more pain than ever).

They made one referral to a Dr. Ahn in Dallas (about 3 hours away) - when I saw him he didn't listen to a thing I said and obviously hadn't taken any time to read my records; he didn't even see that the cervical ribs were noted three years ago, nor did he listen when I told him that in the exam room and tried to hand him the x-rays, which I went and picked up in order to have them in hand for this consult, and he tells me "Well, first we'll need to see if you have a cervical rib or not..." I've been going round and round with doctors and have had every diagnostic test in the book, some of them multiple times, and he basically wanted to start all over! Not only does this seem like wasted time and expense, but the hospital in which I saw him was disgustingly filthy - I kid you not, there was mold growing on the wall of the exam room! I have no desire to see him again, nor would I want to have surgery in such a disgusting hospital.

Does anyone have experience with a TOS specialist in Texas? I saw the Houston docs listed on the sticky thread - Houston is 6 hours away and I don't mind going there if I can actually talk to someone first and ensure that I'm not going to see someone for 5 minutes and have them tell me to come back in a few days and then a few weeks, and then again in another few weeks, etc. before ever deciding anything at all, as not only is that exceedingly inconvenient but I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job if I keep missing work with no end in sight, and then I'll have no health insurance. Don't get me wrong, my employers have been very understanding, and I'm sure if I could just tell them what the plan is so they could plan accordingly things would go much more smoothly - at this point even if I told them I had to have surgery and would be out for 6 weeks that would be preferable to what's going on now, which is mostly "I don't know. I see another doctor two weeks from Tuesday and then we'll see" interspersed with "I'm in so much pain I can't sit up straight so I won't be in today" on an unpredictable basis.

I'm just so miserable and despairing right now - I've done everything I've been told to do by every doctor I've seen, I feel like I'm no further ahead, and now to be more or less told "Well, we don't know what else to do with you, good luck!" plus one of the worst consult experiences I've had - is there ever going to be an end? It feels so hopeless!

If anyone has had a positive experience with a TOS specialist in Texas, I would love to hear about it.