I was just curious, if you guys have a bad flare how long does it normally last?
I'm having one now, that is a full body flare, arms, legs, back, everything. It started a couple of weeks ago and it's finally starting to taper off. I would say, a bad flare for me, can last two or three weeks.

Depends on what I have done.

If I am doing something *new* (which I have learned never to do, haha), and I can feel something bad right away and I STOP RIGHT AWAY, than 2 weeks minimum.

But, one time I did something new I thought I could do and I only did the thing for 2 hours, and it took literally 6 months for me to calm down.

I have been able to get some of them down to just a few days, but normally at least a week is normal. That is with huge self care / not doing anything in order to get things down. I am amazed at how much is required to get things to calm down. You almost really just need to not use your arms at all at that point.

Depends on how severely aggravated nerves get. Usually 2-3 weeks. But some have lasted months. One PT had me doing scapula stabilizing exercises that engaged my neck and upper traps. Took 3 months to recover from that.

As others have noted, the "no pain, no gain" approach is the worst to observe for TOS sufferers, in my opinion. A supposed star PT at MGH (part of Dr. Donahue's team) caused a severe flare-up that lasted about a month when she insisted that I continue doing shoulder shrugs during a session. I had stopped b/c of immediate symptoms caused by engaging traps and neck muscles, explained why I stopped and she told me to "keep doing the shrugs." Stupidly, I followed her direction.

Unfortunately, I think many of us have had bad experiences with therapists.

the worst for me was when a doctor had me put my hands on my head for five minutes. within 1 second my blood was gone.

once i started shaking, he had me stop, probably 3 minutes in. i didn't want to cause myself pain but I WAS SO DESPERATE FOR SOMEONE TO BELIEVE SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH ME.

Afterwards, I was so in need of blood that I could not bend my arms. I had to stand in the waiting room waiting for his colleague to see me. I had to move some chairs around in order to have space to stand out of the way. The receptionists started gossiping about me - I look completely healthy - young. But was in so much pain I had no other choice but to stand there for 30 minutes before even moving or doing anything with my body.