Hi! I live in Norway and have now finally been diagnosed with TOS by an excersise correctional specialist named Kjetil Larsen here in Norway ** I also have depressed shoulders and have been advised by him to raise my shoulders by about 1-2 cm, because veins/nerves are being crushed between collarbone and first rib. I’m having to learn new posture with shoulders and how to correctly use shoulder blades etc. I notice a big difference in ulnaris pain when I hold my shoulders up, it’s a big relief. Kjetil recommends no stretching of neck muscles, because these muscles are often very weak on TOS patients.
I recommend checking out his website or looking him up on YouTube. He has also published an article about how to correctly identify and treat TOS.

Dude that is crazy?!! I posted his article and I have an online appointment with him! So nuts man you are lucky you get to see him in person. I am following his protocols as best I can and I've seen huge leaps in improvement in the past. Month or so! Please keep us updated with your progress!

Yes, I wish I had found about him a long time ago. I wonder why physical therapists don’t have the knowledge he does!! It’s kind of scary getting advice from them, then getting contradictory advice from him. He told me he has patients all over the world. It costs a lot of money, but if it helps me, it’s worth it.
I’ve got another appointment on July 29. Good luck with your appointment!!

Hi Dontbeamelvin, Hi Sahol78 (and everybody),

How are you today ?

I sincerely hope your condition continue to improve.

From my side, i did shrug, or rather monkey shrugs, and diagonal wall slides for nearly 10 days but this regimen didn't seem to improve my TOS (not sure of this).

I had the feeling that the disconfort and tightness in neck and traps slightly increased by doing these (not during the exercices but after at rest).

So i say myself that maybe a 10 days trial of this routine is too short for real improvement and that temporary discomfort's increase is not abnormal ?

In other words, do you think that 10 days of this routine is too short to give up ?

Also, in how many days/weeks did you saw improvement by strenghtening your upper traps/ serratus anterior ? Was there initially an increase of pain and tightness in neck and shoulder/elbow/hand ?

I would be very happy to have your thoughts.

God bless you.

Hi!

Kjetil Larsen has me doing shrugs with very light weights or an elastic band, and more excersises to help strengthen neck muscles. I think these can be found on YouTube (??). I can only do a few of these and only 2x week. I get really sore/tight muscles in neck afterwards. Don’t see any results with this yet, but have only been doing it since end of June and only 2x week. I think it will just take time. Yes, I agree that 10 days is probably way to short (but I don’t know) to expect improvement, who helped you with your routine? Maybe you’re doing the excersises too often?? I was told that if I do my excersises correctly, they should be done slowly, 1 set to moderate fatigue, 2 x week that I should expect to have a mild worsening of my symptoms, but not for more than 1-2 days. I get this, mostly tender and tight scalenes and sore shoulder (I do some shoulder excersises because of some damaged muscles do to wrong shoulder posture and wrong use of shoulder blades over many years). Sometimes my fingers tingle more and I have a general achy feeling on my right side-my worse side.

I don’t know what monkey shrugs are or the diagonal slides. I think it’s probably normal to be sure and tight a few days. Good luck with your recovery! Hope you find some relief!

Have you checked out Kjetil Larsen on YouTube? He has a website, but I can’t post website name in here. He does a lot of online appointments with people who can’t come to his clinic, it’s pricy but probably worth it if you can do it. His clinic is called Trening og rehab in Norwegian and I think it’s Training and rehab in English??

Things I have learned from him about my TOS and TOS in general:

-never ever!!!!pull shoulders back and down as it crushes brachial plexus and can contribute to damage shoulder muscles
-lift shoulders 1-2 cm straight up, this helps my ulnar pain, but it takes a lot of time to get used to keeping this posture.
-get out of the cervical hinge-neck should be long (probably on YouTube)
- all excersises should be done slowly!!! It targets the muscle you’re working in, not all the other muscles. This makes the excersises much more effective and it’s much harder to do them.

Again! Good luck!

I have TOS and my shoulder quite often falls forward and compresses the nerves in the neck. However in my case the TOS is causing this and not the other way around.

I was diagnosed with the exact thing that you mention here (muscle imbalance in the shoulder girdle causing TOS). And I was given exercises to do. Intense, hourly exercises every day.

Well I continued that for 18 months and my condition got worse so I got a second opinion. After some scalene block tests (us guided injection), I was told that the exercises were totally pointless because the only thing that would fix my TOS is surgery.

Through overuse, muscles had grown abnormally and were compressing the nerves and arteries in the Thoracic outlet region.

The shoulder falls because the scapula (shoulder blade area) is not getting enough blood so it weakens and is often painful with pins and needles. Like I said, in my case the TOS is causing this.

If you are reading this please do not just simply do exercises hoping your TOS will go away. In some cases it might but the clock is ticking and the longer the nerves are being compressed, the more likely it is that they will become damaged permanently.

Ask your doctor for a scalene block test. Even if you have to pay for it yourself. It's worth it.

According to How to truly identify and treat thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) - Treningogrehab.no

It is the scalenes that are incredibly weak and that is why they are "overused". He recommends strengthening the scalenes. We're you doing any scalenes exercises/neck or just strengthening your shoulder?

Did you have surgery and how did it go?