• In my case there was a fine line between physical therapy (PT) that helped my TOS and PT that irritated it too much. When the PT was just right it would loosen up my shoulder and I would gain more pain free movement. If I over did things, my whole arm would go numb and I couldn't even drive myself home from the physical therapist's office. If I over did things, sometimes I used to have to lie still on the floor on my physical therapists office with a cold pack on my shoulder until the irritation went away and I before I could regain enough use of my left arm and hand to drive home. For most of my fibromyalgia pain problems, heat packs usually worked the best, but for the TOS cold packs were what helped the most, especially whenever my hand and arm went numb.
  
  
• Since my TOS was caused in part by an elevated shoulder with a big muscular knot in the middle of it, one of the main things that helped me was to put hot packs and massage the shoulder knot daily to try to get it smoothed out. Some people who have TOS from an extra rib have to have surgery to have the rib removed. Until I saw an x-ray of my rib cage, I thought I had either an extra rib or a pushed up rib because the muscles in my shoulder were so tight and solid it felt like there was bone there. But to my surprise, the x-rays didn't show any bone structure in my elevated shoulder, meaning the hard substance I could feel was just a big knotted muscle.
  
  
• I have a hard foam roller that I got from my physical therapist. I lay on it lengthwise and roll from side to side like a rolling pin. It's pushes my shoulder back and is a great antidote to being hunched forward over a keyboard all day.
  
  
• Nutritional deficiencies, especially those of magnesium, can cause tight muscles which I think were a factor in my TOS. Conditions commonly linked to magnesium deficiencies may include migraines, depression, heart palpitations, mitral valve prolapse, muscle cramps, insomnia and much more. For more information on this topic, see my sections on magnesium and fibromyalgia diet. Many medical web sites mention a link between TOS and anxiety and depression, and I suspect a logical reason for the link is that all three condition may be exacerbated by magnesium deficiencies.

• This article from the emedicine site has some pretty good treatment ideas for TOS.

Recommended Books for TOS

Related Pages:

Eye floaters

Scoliosis Exercises

Fibromyalgia Treatment

Popping Jaws, Knees and Other Joints - my shoulder on the TOS side frequently pops out of place from muscular tension.