Curious if anyone out there has run into some kind of brace that straightens up the back and/or pulls the shoulders back to open up the chest?

Reason I ask is I've noticed that when I put my left arm behind my back as far as I can, my symptoms pretty much disappear.

It's odd. I've done strengthening for my rhomboids till the cows come home but obviously it's not doing the job.

It's a completely "positional" TOS situation.

Anyways, maybe a brace trains you to have correct posture and keep those damn shoulder blades back and down.

KY

There's quite a few online- search for posture brace.
There used to be posts about them in the past 2006/7 or so..might come up in a forum search if you set if for older posts..

They can be helpful , but if I recall and it makes sense to me , you can't use them full time or your body will rely on the brace mainly and no body retraining will last long term.

rhomboids are fairly weak muscles, that's why poor posture tires them out so easily.

Did you loosen up the frontal muscles & any triggerpoints before working on the back muscles?

Been really working pec minor and subclavious.

I've found quite a few online. Tons of them!

From past posts, it seems like these are one size fits all and some people tend to get aggravated symptoms using brace support.

KY

We previously discussed the "Intelliskin" product on these forums. Some people liked it and some did not. I found that even though it did it's intended job, it pinched too much which added to compression.

I really like the iPosture which helps you discover just how often you are subtly dropping into a minor slouch as you focus on your work. http://www.iposture.com/

A comfortable "reminder" like Intelleskin (which I like), iPosture, and Posture Shirt seem to be beneficial. I believe braces like Alignmed's S3 brace are not in the long run as they further exacerbate muscle imbalances.

I purchased the Intelliskin Foundation shirt.

Will let you know what I think.

KY

I have the posture shirts, intelliskin bra and long sleeve shirt and the Spinal Q brace. I like the brace for acute days although its bulky and you cant wear it for too long. I like the intelliskins better than the posture shirts-more support, and I havent tried i-posture but it looks interesting. My insurance covered the Spinal Q. Somewhere I posted a picture and link to it.

Wearing the Intelliskin Foundation V neck shirt.

I like it.

There's no doubt it pulls my shoulders back. It definitely gives me cues to keep working on posture throughout the day.

On the flip side, it's itchy. And wow, what a pain to get on and off.

Much more good than bad.

Remains to be seen how long it will last and if it's worth the price tag but so far so good.

KY

How are your symptoms going ? settled back down yet?

They've settled down quite a bit once again. Symptoms are very faint.

Once again, persistent deep tissue massage of pec minor and subclavius with a raquetball quieted things down tremendously.

What I'm now hoping is that the combination of above + Foundation Training + use of intelliskin really put this to bed.

So far so good.

KY