I agree with elap. If you've had TOS for any amount of time, you're nervous system isn't going to repair itself that quickly. I've been working on myself for 44 months now and improvements come very slowly. I've had TOS for more than 30 years, though.

Thank you for your words!

I am in Canada and fortunatly we have a really good health services, well not really good but at least i is free for any Canadian resident. I did have the surgery of rib recession last April but i can`t see any differance. I have a great surgeon, probably the best in Canada and he know this syndrome better than anybody else here. Before the surgery i saw him 3 time and spend about 50 minutes on every apointment to explain me everything about TOS and if you are in Canada and if you want to see a surgeon try your best too see him. He have a really high knowledge about the TOS and he is a great person. First time on is office, he ask me to call him Sean, not Dr Mcfadden, great attitude and humain like me and you. I will leave is info on the botom of my text. He din`t do the surgery right away because he was beliving i was may be able to get better with a good P.T. and lots of exercises.Actually he was right and for 3 years i was doing better day after day, i would say i was at 90% recovry. I was able to do anything like i was able to do 5 years before, mountain bike, badminton, even dirt biking with not much pain. I had to push my self at the limit to get some pain. I am an electrician and i was able to do my work with any pain even if i had to work all day long with my arms over my shoulders which it was awesome. After i went to school and i did a few really bad thing. I totally burn my self, studing 16 hours every day, sleeping 3 hours every night, wasent on my own bed so change my sleeping position and a few thing like that. In less than 3 months i was back at -10% than i was 3 years before. Anyway all that story to say, he advise me before the surgery and he told me, Alexis don`t expect anything with this surgery, he gave me hope but he was realist which i think it`s what you have to say when you are not perfectly confidant. 70% but in your case.... No expectation so i am not mad at him, i actually have all my respect for this Surgeon. He send me an email yesterday and he would like to see me to see if we can try something else.

If you are in Canada here are is info.

Dr. Sean McFadden
Foothills Medical Centre
Calgary, Alberta
Cardiothoracic Surgeon
He has a really high rating about knowledge and really healpfull. ( 22 patiens of 23 rate him at 5 on 5 about these 2 thing. Review on ratemds

You can find @drewanderson's perspective on Stoxen in this thread, starting with message #4:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread182773.html

Unlike the other comments about Stoxen on this board, including my own, Drew's comments are unique in that he has actually seen Stoxen.

Now for my own comments because we all like to talk about this guy: :)

I'm not as down on Stoxen as the other people here who have also not seen him.

First of all, he gets a lot of things right. Like the importance of the scalenes, including how they pull the first rib up and how important it is to get rid of spasms in them. He talks about strengthening certain muscles for the purpose of elevating the shoulder girdle, but only after muscle spasms are cleared out. He also says it takes a lot of hours of therapy to clear out muscle spasms.

I find there is more to like than dislike in what he says. You can see comments I made earlier this year at http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post980274-22.html

Regarding Coop42's comments about all the years it takes, with all due respect, Coop has a lot more going on that just TOS. He talks about not being able to squat, having to dig into his thighs to increase mobility, having a valve replaced, being immobile for years, etc. Coop's doing a lot of great stuff, but I don't think he's a model for classic TOS at this point.

I've made a lot of progress the past few years and feel like I'm mostly down to my scalenes and SCM as being major problems. (I used to have other things like poor posture, pec minor issues, drooped shoulder and collar bone, compressed spine, etc.). I also have the supraclavicular edema he references. So I feel like I would be a good candidate to try him out. If I was local to Chicago, I would have done so already.

One thing that did bother me and has put me off on seeing him is "reverting". What happens if he fixes me up, I go back home (long distance) and then revert? eg, my scalenes go hypertonic again. But you're saying he is now selling the vibrating massage unit to patients so they can self treat. That sounds awesome!

What's left then from my perspective:
-- Travel
-- Chicago winters suck
-- Can I handle multiple hours of treatment per day?

I think I'll wait til spring. Until then, I have some more things to try on my own to keep me busy.

Thanks for the infos Chroma.`

I agree with all your comments. Take a look on your inbox, i will send you something about him. I am doing a kind of physio which it call RPG. She mostly work on my body posture and more important my breathing exercises. She think it's not time to do any stretching for now because i am not ready to do it. She want me to get a perfect posture from my feet to my head, pull down my ribs then eventually im gonna be ready to do stretching but slowly and very gentle stretching. I tried pretty much any kind of therapy and its always the same, making my situation worse. She is the only one to work on that way and she really care at me. For 90$ she spend 50 to 70 minutes with me. How much is chiro, P.T or anything like that in the States and how long are the sessions? Here Chiro are about 5 minutes, some chiro 10 minutes, P.T is may ba max 30 minutes and they think on totally different way.

Anyway I will skype with Dr. Stoxen to know exactly what he is thinking about my situation and more important about his method. There is no doubt about 1 point, he know T.O.S really well and that make me a bit more confidant about going to Chicago to see if it can make a difference but i have to find more review of him. I am on same situation than you which mean i am at 650 milles from his office. By the way i just notice that but is vibrating massage unit was release only 6 weeks ago so that's probably why i found just 1 review of it. It's pretty big unit and seems like industrial quality. You can see it on his web site and if you want to see a demo send him an email and he is gonna send you a quick video. Hope to get more comments or review of him.

I agree with you Chroma that Dr. Stoxen definitely seems to understand the complex workings of TOS with its interrelated, often confounding, moving parts. Also, unlike many chiros I've seen, he appreciates the importance of soft tissue work, and his approach is multi-faceted, which I believe is the key to successfully treating TOS. Most of the therapists I've been to don't operate beyond their limited area of "expertise" -the trigger point therapist not a believer in any strengthening or any method other than trigger point work; the PT who believes in only strengthening and states that any soft tissue work will just aggravate symptoms. That said, in my case, it's unlikely that intense daily sessions (many hours/day) to manually "fix" the body would be successful. And Dr. Stoxen seems to be a "my way or the highway" kind of therapist (could be wrong here, it's just based on my 2 hour conversation with him). I've learned the hard way to speak up when therapists seem to be causing more harm than good and to walk away from therapists who don't respect my wishes. I'd love to see more reviews of Dr. Stoxen, and if you or others go to him, please post comments on your experience.

I had a pretty good idea this afternoon. I knew he was on Facebook so I decide to add him on my friends. After that I sent lots of messages To is friends. Till now I got five different message back and they are all great but not one of them are about TOS. I am sure I'm going to get lots of other message tonight but for now I didn't heard anything bad about him.

Alexis, so you did get better with PT at first? I am very depressed as I just got diagnosed and just sitting here on the couch waiting for doc's apps makes me go crazy.

I'm scared about my future.

Thanks for your response. I would definitely see an RPG person if they were in my area, but they are not. I have done the Egoscue protocol before which emphasizes posture and it was helpful. I also use the iPosture monitoring device and highly recommend it.

Posture improvements definitely help.

Regarding your questions: Here in the states, chiros and PTs vary immensely. One chiro charged $45 for 15 mins of adjustments with no soft tissue work. I didn't stay there very long. Another chiro charged $60 for 30 mins where the first 15-20 was all soft tissue work and the other 10-15 was adjustments. I saw him on a regular basis until I moved.

PTs are a bit more expensive than chiros here and usually require a referral from an MD. Both PTs I saw emphasized soft tissue work and had already been seen and recommended by people with TOS. Still, they didn't go all the way with fixing my scalenes which I think is hugely important and my largest remaining problem.

Hi Nellyzen,

Yes at first i had great improvement with P.T but be careful because it's different for everyone. I came back to 90% with P.T. but i did lots of mistake after so i am back -10% !! Now P.T make me worse. As what i know T.O.S are so different for every person. Sitting on the couch is probably on of the worse thing to do for many reason. Take a look in your inbox, i will send you something about that. I think we are all scared here but you have to try your best to find solutions. There is lots of tools to help us but it`s freaking hard to find the right one. I've tried so much different treatment and i had surgery as well but no chances till now. tomorrow is another day and i will keep working to find a solution with my situation. Look to see if there is one RPG in your area, they gonna work on your posture and it could help. It's probably the most important point even if you find a solution for your T.O.S.

Thanks Chroma,

ok so it's pretty much the same here. ( GOOGLE TRANSLATION FRENCH TO ENGLISH) With RPG All work posture starts with a respiratory work. The emphasis is on active expiration to allow a longer inspiratory muscles. We find an easy breathing and decreased tension in terms of patient