| Last Updated June 29, 2005 |
My TOS :
I've had TOS since I was 19 or 20 years old but it was never diagnosed until I was 28. I'm not sure exactly what caused it but I'm thinking it could've been an injury from playing high school football. When I got out of high school I started working on the family dairy and milking cows is very repetitive work, that's when it really started bothering me. My neck and shoulders were always really tight and my right arm hurt all the time. I really didn't pay that much attention at first, figured it was something that would go away but over the years it kept getting worse. I saw several doctors but they didn't know what was wrong. They said I had tendinitis, or I just had tight muscles from the work I was doing. In 1989 I herniated a disc in my lower back and the physical therapist I was seeing noticed the swelling in my right hand. He told me he thought it was thoracic outlet syndrome, which I had never heard of. The doctor agreed. In 1990, I had a disc operated on in my lower back. In 1991, I had the scalene muscles removed on the right side of my neck. It made me worse, alot worse. Now I can hardly do anything, can't look up, can't look down, can hardly sit, can't do much with my arms, because the pain is terrible. I take Lorcet for the pain but sometimes a few drinks makes me feel better than anything. People think that's an excuse but some days you do whatever you can just to get through them. In 1995, I tried suicide because the pain was so bad and my wife left me on top of that. I was in the hospital unconscious for couple of days but I made it through. I believe God left me here for a reason and that's why I'm writing this. I figure maybe I can say something or do something to help someone else that's dealing with this. Believe me, I understand every one of your stories. I don't know anyone with TOS so please e-mail me if you'd like to chat.
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