Hello, my name is Kelly and while I don't have an official diagnosis yet of TOS, I'm sure that's what the problem is. Mine is due to a repetitive motion injury at work and this has only been going on for about 2 months and I'm already fed up with the whole WC system. The first doctor said that it was just a strained muscle in my shoulder although I told him it felt like a pinched nerve. He just prescribed Naproxen which only bothered my stomach so I had to quit taking it. He then told me to take Ibuprofen which I'm sure all of you know isn't helping a bit. Now for my first question, is there a website that documents how painful this condition is? Even though I tell the doctors my pain is between a 6-8 all the time, they still won't prescribe me anything for the pain. He also sent me to PT and fortunately I had a great therapist most of the time (I had 2 sessions with other therapists and they tried to force me to do much more than I can do). My therapist is the one who first suggested the possibility of TOS and has passed that information on to the doctor. The doctor ordered an MRI of the wrong part of my shoulder (all he got was the rotator cuff area) so of course it was normal. He also did xrays of my neck and shoulder and again all was normal. He finally referred me to a physiatrist within the same clinic and I have no confidence in this man at all and suspect he's always in favor of the insurance company. The first time I saw him he insisted that the problem was my rotator cuff and gave me a cortisone injection in the shoulder and told me it should fix everything and sent me back for more therapy. When I went back to see him today and told him the shot did absolutely no good, he asked if I had neck xrays done. None of that was in my chart so he ordered new xrays. Once again they were normal. Since I have pain in my neck (and my shoulder and arm, numbness & tingling in my right hand in the pinky and ring finger and my hand is much colder than the other) he said the problem is stiffness in the cervical joints and insisted on a cortisone shot in the C3-C4 area and once again told me that it should fix everything and that I would have immediate relief. Yeah right! I am in even more pain than I was before! I went to the hot tub at the YMCA on the way home from his office as that usually helps a little bit but not today. I just sat in there an cried because I hurt so bad! To top it all off, I've been off work since all this started as my employer doesn't have any light duty work for me; today he was going to send me back to full duty even though I am no better! I don't know what to do at this point....the WC laws in TN are definitely not in the injured worker's best interest (why did I ever think they would be???). I don't have any health insurance and don't want to mess up my WC case but somehow I need to see a doctor that can at least take this seriously. Can someone direct me to where I can find information on what medications are usually prescribed for TOS and what activities aggravate it?
Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on so much....I over did it on typing so now it's off to the couch with my new best friend....my heating pad!