Hi guys,

If anyone is interested in the exercises that my dr gave me for TOS I wil be happy to scan the paper and share. I did them today although I am in pain and I do feel more mobile.

Let me know

I'm game. Please share.

Daily exercises for TOS:

1. Stand erect with arms at the side
a. shrug shoulders forward and upward
b. relax
c. shrug shoulders backward and upward
d. relax
e. repeat 10 times. add a 2 lb weight in each hand and the end of the first week

2. Stand erect with arms parallel to the floor
a. keeping elbows straight, touch back of hands above head
b. relax and repeat 10 times
c. add weights weekly starting with 2lbs and gradually increasing to 10lbs

3. Standing erect, do a standard pushup against the wall. Repeat 10 times. Increase weekly.

4. Standing erect, bend the neck, trying to touch the ear to the shoulder, right and left. Repeat 10 times. Increase weekly

5. Lying face down, arch the back, stretching and extending the neck for a count of 3 seconds 10 times.

6. Lying on back with knees bent and arms at the side, extend arms to touch palms above the head on the floor.

1. The shoulder shrugs are interesting for the instruction to move the shoulders forward or backward. I've only seen one study on using shoulder shrugs for TOS. They had a positive outcome, but I think they were just standard shrugs.

2. This would flare me up. Repeated reaching overhead does that to me.

3. This would probably flare me up too. Push ups and wall push ups give me my most delayed flare up. Basically as the muscles get stronger they also get a little tighter and a little bigger, for which I don't have any tolerance. Do yourself a favor and at least add chest stretches right afterwards and then again later that day.

4. I absolutely cannot do this. Have done it in the past and it flares me up. This makes my left rib elevate. (left is my main TOS side)

5. I've done this before without problems. Usually with arms out to the side in some configuration. Referring to the arm position, people call these YTLs or YTWs and such.

6. I don't know if this would bother me or not.

You'll have to let us know how the exercises go for you.

Thanks for taking the time to share and type this up.

Here is the shoulder shrug info:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...d.php?t=162369

You're welcome!

I also found this website about posture, Alexis kept mentioning this.

http://www.rpg-souchard.com/postures.php

I did the exercises yesterday and my pain feels about the same, I did not notice a huge flare up. I'm wary of the neck stretches though, they are scary.

I think I'm falling apart, lol. My doc recommended a 30 min walk which I just did and my lower back hurts like crazy. What the heck?

I got this.

1) Get the Weisberg book and do the stretch set in there once in the morning and once in the evening:
http://www.amazon.com/Minutes-Pain-F...dp/B000FCK4VS/

2) After you feel some improvements to your body (could be a few days to a few weeks), start walking again. But use a little timer (watch, smart phone, kitchen timer, whatever) and set it to something low like 4 mins. When it beeps, turn back. That's an 8 min walk.

Every couple of days, bump it up by 1 min (for a total of two). You will build up to 30.

You may want to do the Weisberg stretches before and/or after your walk. They are only 3 mins.

Watch out for traction on the arm and shoulder girdle. If you pick up the pace as your fitness increases, this can be a real danger to your TOS. Your two main options are a) keep the arms bent or b) support the arms such as putting them in pockets or even propping loose fists on top of jean pockets.

If you still have back problems there are other books, stretches and exercises that you can do. I also like inversion therapy.

But start with the above and see how you do.

I'm not going to continue with these exercises anymore, they are making me worse.

Refresh my memory..I read so many posts..

How long ago did your TOS symptoms start up?
And what may have set it off?

If it was fairly recent then sometimes you need some down time to let things calm down a bit before working to fixing it..

That is interesting, because the chiro I am going to told me to NOT do any stretches