Dear all: I am trying to help you from my experience. These are very high risk surgeries with MANY short and LONG term outcome problems. Most of the surgeries seem to scar down over the nerves about 3 months after some folks think they might be getting better. --I believe the expericenced surgeons are WELL aware of this and WELL aware that you might be back for more. BUT more is usually NOT better. The ones I know personallly who went back for MORE including me to clear off scar tissue or cut out the rest of a rib that grew back end up worse in longrun. Scar begets scar NO MATTER what anti-scarring agent they TELL you they will use. NONE of them work well. Ask neurosurgeons what they think of this scar problem--and if you neurolyse a large area and remove a RIB, scar will want to fill in every empty space in the body.
These surgeries as many of you know create HUGE problems and very bizarre and worse pain to live the REST of your life with. For me it created an UNSTABLE neck, shoulder girdle and spine--with muscles that are still atrophying and now collapsing throat--Nightmare bizarre nerve pain that makes you wish they had killed you on the table. My pain level seems to RISE every day higher and higher-
I now wish I could go back to just a winged scapula injury and NO Surgery--cuz at least i had periods of no pain at all.
I'm off track--want to post that check the medical malpractice laws in the state where you have surgery--because CA will be the worst. VERY hard to find a medical malpractice attorney because of the CAP passed in 1985 on Medical Malpractice in CA that says a plaintiff cannot get more than 250,000 for pain and suffering. NO attorney is motivated by that amount--especially after paying for expert witnesses etc.
If you are already disabled by your condition and then the surgeon makes you worse---too bad for you and for the TAXPAYERS of California--because as you become more disabled--the TAXPAYERS will be paying to the mistakes of the surgery and the surgeon. AHN and JORDAN, etc know this I am sure---so they are getting rich not just on your insurance money--but any damage they do to patients the taxpayers of CA will simply PAY for--not them. So they can afford to open their expensive offices in Santa Monica--or L.A. and by using BOTOX they are going to make even bigger profits. Ahn has been partnered with Jordan long before he opened that private office, and I believe BEFORE he told patients he had investments in the surgery center where Jordan did his BOTOX injections--where Ahn would send so many of us for this so-called SCALENE BLOCK--which I believe is bull as well for a determiner of how well TOS surgery will do for you.
This is Business for them, not because they are such caring soles that they want to help all the nerve entrapped patients in the world--their results are not that good--in fact those lIKE me who they HURT--they did NOTHING to help. In fact, they tried to disown me as a human being. Not the sign of caring doctors.Triste