Headaches post surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome

Posted by fairfax1972 @fairfax1972, Jun 21 1:55am

I had decompression of the brachial plexus and Scalenectomy 7 months ago.

I now have constant headaches which are worse at night. My neck and shoulder is sore and stiff.
My head is so heavy and sometimes my eyelids just want to close.
Could this be caused by scar tissue or adhesions?
Nothing I take works for the pain and I am up 3 times a night with it.

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Jennifer, Volunteer Mentor | @jenniferhunter | Jun 21 4:23pm

@fairfax1972 Welcome to Connect. I'm sorry you are having so much pain. I think you may be right about scar tissue. I also have thoracic outlet syndrome, and I am a cervical spine surgery patient with a fusion at C5 C6. When I first learned about having TOS, the vascular surgeon advised against surgery for TOS because it could create scar tissue that makes it worse. He said it had about a 65% success rate. He sent me to physical therapy instead for several years to do myofascial release to treat the TOS.

MFR is a way to stretch overly tight fascia and scar tissue. The key is it needs to be a sustained shearing stretch and wait for the tissue to unwind itself. That has helped me a lot, and it was during that PT that my spine problem became evident and a couple years later, I had spine surgery. Having spine surgery put a surgical incision very close to the area of my neck near the scalenes and brachial plexus and it did make my TOS worse during the inflammation stage of surgical healing. I had pain in my arm and worried, but that got better with rehab You may be still in an inflamed healing stage. Surgery causes scar tissue. My surgical scar tissue periodically tightens, and I use MFR techniques that I learned to self treat and maintain movement and reduce pain. I can have something get tight, cause pain, and then when I stretch it out, the pain goes away instantly. Even the incision scars get tight, and they can be loosened with MFR stretching.

Have you asked your surgeon about this pain? Would your doctor send you for physical therapy for this?

You can learn about MFR from this discussion.
Myofascial Release Therapy (MFR) for treating compression and pain
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/
There is a provider search at this link.
https://mfrtherapists.com/
The first step would be to ask your surgeon if you are healed well enough to do MFR work through the surgical area.