Am I dealing with undiagnosed TOS?
Hi all! Been reading all your stories and identifying with many of them!
I'm looking to understand a possible cause for a very long term (15+ years) ailment. I have pressure/tension headaches that very specifically trigger when using my right arm for specific movements, such as scrubbing dirty pots/pans, or prolonged motions cleaning a window, or lifting my arms up above my head, for example. I can lift with my arms, but almost immediately I fell the burn in the shoulders and I can't hold heavy things for any real duration. Doing overhead press, I can lift fully with my left arm and my right arm just begins to tremble and shake with even a light weight half way up.
If I overuse my arms/shoulders, it leads to waking up the next day with severe pressure headaches. The same thing occurs when leaning for long periods on my arm on the floor, in a plank or pushup position. Occasionally I will have periods of time for a few days where the arm feels "dead", until rested. And recently I can add a new symptom, a chest pain that extends from my armpit under my right pec. This symptom is coupled with difficulty breathing, what feels like a tightness in my chest preventing me getting a full breath.
I've had - over the years - a lot of treatment attempts, including physiotherapy, acupuncture, sports massage, NSAIDs, botox injections, CGRP inhibitors - MRIs, X-rays, ECGs - all of which have provided minimal relief and no solid answers. I've spent years in Neurology trying different drug treatments for headaches. But in truth, the best relief I've found is to just... not use my arms. Adjusted my sleeping posture completely (laying on an arm guarantees headaches), avoided heavy lifting or especially overhead lifting, keep my elbows tucked, etc.
I'd never even heard of TOS or nTOS until I had the idea to put these symptoms into ChatGPT, and that's lead me here, wondering if this might be an answer and what a possible solution might look like after years of "just living with it".