Dear all TOSers: Please beware of TOS surgery. I am going to have to have a tracheotomy because my breathing is getting so obstructed from a collapse of my throat and neck--TOS surgery 2004 by G. James Avery at California Pacific Medical Center--see my website at www.sonic.net/bjj
Dr. Avery was so cruel to me after he paralyzed my phrenic nerve and winged my scapula again very badly. He yelled at me in the follow-up appt to "TELL ME WHAT IS BETTER" He accused me of not swinging my ARM enough after surgery-but how could I????? He damaged my scapula nerve so my shoulder blade just hung loosely--I asked him NOT to take my rib but he did so anyway. He had NO tests showing any problems with vascular or nerve function. These TOS surgeon are using us to make LOTS of money--and or to feed their professional or personal egos. This is NOT a surgery that is approved by MOst top doctors in the field of neurology and neurosurgery. PLEASE do all you can conservatively to improve your symptoms. UCSF STOPPED doing them. What about UCLA--is Ahn still cutting there?? What will they do with all the failed cases. UCSF tells me they just send them back to their primary care doctors. Why aren't the hospitals taking care of us NOW after they allow these surgeons to ruin us. WHY don't we demand the medical board make them. Now my throat/neck is COLLAPSING. I can't breath. I awake gasping for AIR.....CPap machine doesn't help.......What more will they take from me. Long term results from these surgeries is BAD--especially if they take the rib and the scalenes. One person committed suicide that I heard about after a TOS surgery and then a CAR accident. Think about it--they are taking out structures you need for your NECK. I wish I could put them all in JAIL now---Dr. Ahn, Dr. Jordan, DR. G James Avery....I wish someone would take out their scalenes and ribs and inject BOTOX into their necks and shoulder girdle muscles if that is what they have made most their money doing. God help us because they will kill us if we let them. How many REPEAT surgeries do you know of...each time patients getting in MORE pain with more problems after. God help us now. Triste