Nothing but increased pain for me. In fact, it's worse - now my arms fall asleep after about 10 minutes of driving.

That left 1st rib will just not move.

It made my TOS and nerve injuries worse too. The long drive there and back didn't help either.

PT helped me pre and post surgery... however it was limited to walking and stretching ONLY.

I was fortunane to have a PT guy who wanted the (free) instruction on handling TOS patients and he was more than willing to listen to my surgeon and take his direction. He considered it an education!

IMHO, if provider X refuses to work with my GP or surgeon towards my recovery, you should fire him.

Pre-surgery: PT made the situation worse. I was sent specifically to this PT once I was diagnosed with TOS due to her reputation. What they found in surgery probably explains why nothing worked for me.

Sheri TOS - what did they find in surgery?

Thank you all for your input. This p/t has had a TOS patient before that did end up in surgery. As far as I can tell, she's doing things right but everything seems to inflame the area even more, even the stretches.

I'm betting many people on this board, like me, had the symptoms for a long time before getting an actual diagnosis. Can't tell you how many doctors, ortho, neurologists & internists said nothing was wrong with me.

They found a large bone growth on top of the rib. No wonder I was in tears after PT when they were trying to mobilize the rib . . .

I think PT and conservative treatment can work if started early and done correctly. It also depends on the underlying reason why TOS developed in the 1st place. The problem is TOS isn't usually recognized right away.

The first time, my primary physician suspected it around 9 months post injury. This time around (other side), TOS was suspected 2 or 3 months post injury by my orthopedic doctor. He participated in a few TOS surgeries during residency so he was aware of the condition. It seems to all depend on what doctors you see.

Nothing suspicious at all shows up on x ray or MRIs?

Recently a few members were found to have some sort of anomalies during TOS surgery.
Most had not responded well with PT, so with pain & symptoms increasing they looked into expert surgeons & surgery.

I would try another expert PT or expert chiropractor or 2, just to be sure it isn't that one PT that is not able to help you.
But if you've been to quite a few very good PTs already and nothing is helping... maybe it's time to look at surgery or some other alternative therapies.

What kinds of things is the PT trying or having you do?

Sorry if I missed it, do you know which type of TOS you have?
Vascular (arterial or venous) or neural? both?
What is your avg pain level in a day?

If you list some of your symptoms we might be able to suggest something helpful..

95 percent of pts i dont think understand that when your NERVES are sick and irritated, the muscles around them are tight as hell. it's not necessarily anything you're doing wrong.

i agree it totally depends on the pt/doc

Stretching and exercising in PT made me worse (manual therapy and massage therapy helped). While I was able to improve my posture some, my TOS symptoms only got worse. Like you, my 1st rib simply would not move. I finally found a group of therapists that understood TOS and they analyzed my entire rib cage and found that the ribs below were all out of whack and pushing up on the 1st. That is when I decided to have rib-resection surgery. Once I had surgery, they found that my brachial plexus had fused to the first rib with scarring/adhesions.

Now that I have both 1st ribs removed, my ribs and thoracic spine have increased mobility and PT that was previously ineffective is now helping.