United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

The surgery I had on 11/28 was a Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS)surgery. (many of you asked about what type of surgery i had when I posted about a month ago.) TOS is where the brachial plexus and veins and arteries, etc. come out of your neck under the clavical (shoulder bone), but on top of the first rib. That is a very, very small area to begin with and when there is a trama to the brachial plexus it swells in that area and becomes inflamed and swollen, very swollen in my case. My arteries, nerves, etc. were being crushed by the swelling. What the doctor had to do (no way out of this one) is to go in under the arm and remove the first rib on that side, giving the brachial plexus, arteries, etc. more room to heal and allow the swelling to go down. However, it takes 3 to 6 months to recover from the surgery and after you recover then it allows the brachial plexus to heal. If you have TOS in addition to BPI then the only way for the BPI to heal is to deal with the TOS first and the only way is to take out the first rib if the compression was as bad as mine was.
Now, as I stated before, I now have more good days. As long as I dont do things like type for more than 10 minutes, or write for more than 10 minutes, I still cant sweep at all, or use my bpi arm while driving, scrub dishes, fold clothes, etc. As long as I dont do the above it seems to do O.K., but thats not doing anything. Still it is better than before, and I am still in the recovery period from the surgery. Need to stop typing now, and will post again later.
Thanks for all your prayers.
Debra