Thoracic Outlet Syndrome TOS - pins and needles in the arms?

Questions to find out if you might fall into this particularly common

 but often mis-understood condition

·         Do you ever wake up in the night with tingling in both arms and deadness?

·         Do you ever wake up with cold hands that don’t feel like yours?

·         Do you find it difficult to sleep on one of your shoulders and yet you don’t have a frozen shoulder, so you keep tossing and turning all night?

·         Have you been told you may be suffering from Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and have various arm symptoms including pain and stiffness?

·         Have you been diagnosed with Carpel Tunnel Syndrome?

·         Maybe you have even had the surgery and yet the symptoms have returned?

·         Do you work at a computer or desk for quite a lot of time or drive long distances and find that holding a pen for a great deal of time or using a mouse or steering wheel has become harder and harder to do over some time?

If any of these do sound like you and you are still at a bit of a loss as to know what to do with your symptoms that are disturbing your life and ruining your life-style, then perhaps come and see us for a consultation and we will be able to help decide whether the problem you actually have is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.

It is a very common problem due to postural changes over time or commonly found due to using a computer in the work-place or the types of posture adopted during various sports and is frequently confused with other conditions and where treatment has often failed using this particular diagnosis looking at the area between the triangle between the neck and the collar bone and the upper ribs has been completely missed in the examination diagnosis.

Any X-ray would normally show very little change that would make the problem a structural problem and indeed a functional problem to do with the muscles in front of the throat and to the ribs and to the neck and to the clavicle,  this area is also known as being in the body called the brachial plexus which supplies the upper limbs with the nerves that provide sensation and also strength to the muscles as well as all the major arteries that go into the limbs and veins returning back to the heart.  Any compromise in this area would indeed create a variety of symptoms that can be confused very easily with some of the things mentioned above.