Hello all, I had surgery this past Monday 11/05/2007 to remove me scalenes and my first rib on my left side. I am doing my best to stay positive after the surgery, for I know that it takes time to heal after you have surgery. What I can't stop thinking about is should I have more improvement of my symptoms right away now that my rib and muscles arre gone? My TOS was mostly vascular in nature, not having much pain, with my worst symptom being a lose of grip strength in the morning. I expected that after the surgery these symptoms would go away with the compression being unblocked with the removal, but this doesn't seem to be the case for me at least not yet. So what I am hoping to get from anyone that reads this and has had surgery or knows from the forum how people fare right after surgery? Does it typically take a while after surgery to see improvements in symptoms? Thanks, Joshua

I am neurogenic TOS, so my outcome and progress are going to be very different.

However, I will share what I was told by my neurologist: "It took you four years to get to surgery, so you've got to allow some time for healing."

I would think your loss of grip would require some PT for assistance. I hope that you get real TOS type PT, as the other types seem to cause more damage than good. Go with your gut instinct, and let us know how things progress.

Bless you.

TShadow thanks for the response, I am planning on going to a PT that works out of Dr. Ahn's office, I figure they should know how to treat TOS, but like you I have worked with PTs in the past that don't have a clue.

Hi Joshua!

I had rib resection surgery almost 6 months ago for venous TOS and effort thrombosis. So my symptoms before surgery were only massive arm swelling, which actually took about a week to go down after surgery.

Anyway, I felt (mentally and physically) the worst the first couple of weeks after surgery. Give yourself time to heal - I was told by my trainer that it typically takes people 8 weeks to start to feel 'normal' again after the surgery. And in my case he was totally correct.

Hang in there, take it easy and keep us posted as to how your recovery is going. I'm impressed that three days after surgery you are on the computer! (Three days after my surgery I was lying in ICU - hating life!)

Give it some time and be very careful of accidents and quick movements while you are healing.

Even a minor surgery takes 10 days or so for the surface cut to heal, most likely you had a lot more internal things moved around- so it will take much longer.

Hi Josh! Great to see you out here on the flip side! How was your hospital stay? I hope all went well.

When I had both my surgeries, I had 4 weeks symptoms that were worse than pre surgery. You have a lot of internal swelling, which will get worse before it gets better. At three weeks post op SuperJoyce spent a lot of time helping me get my range of motion back and encouraging lymphatic drainage. These things were very helpful to me, and after two or so weeks of that treatment, my arms started feeling a lot better.

Sooooo, just give it a little time. It isn't so often that someone cuts you open, tunnels in, cuts out some bones and muscle, then sews you up again! (I had a great time trying to explain the concept of the surgery to my 4 year old when i had mine...'isn't that going to hurt, mommy?')

So just try to take it easy and rememebr that at 3-4 weeks post op you should feel at least as good as you did going in, and then it should start getting better...that was my experience both times.

Glad you made it through, and I DID think happy thoughts for you on monday morning!!!

Johanna

Josh,

Hoping that you're doing ok, let us know...we do care.

JoshMy surgery was neurogenic and to be honest, I did not feel really good for atleast 6 months to a year. That was also due to over medication which was difficult. Each surgery and case is differnt but you sound really good. Best of luck and I'm thinking of you