![]() “When I saw these patients several months after surgery, I found their lives had changed,” he says.“ They might still have some symptoms, but the majority had substantial improvement. All had the same story: a chronic, debilitating arm or neck condition that had baffled their physicians. Only during a vascular surgery fellowship at the University of California-San Francisco, a center with long experience in TOS, did he begin treating several patients a week. But at one point, he knew little about it, because his surgical training in Boston barely touched on the condition. Thompson is a national expert on TOS in all its forms - including a third version, arterial TOS - and he is working to build a multidisciplinary TOS center at Washington University. Venous TOS, the kind Cook had, is more easily recognized because it entails a blood clot that is visible in imaging studies. Some doctors even doubt its existence, because overt physical signs may not appear for years eventually Turvey’s arm turned blue and felt cold to the touch. In its neurogenic form, the kind Turvey had, TOS is difficult to diagnose and little understood. Suffering from versions of the same condition, both Turvey and Cook were diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS). Trainers discovered a low blood oxygen level and sent him to a Denver hospital where doctors dissolved dangerous clots in his lungs - but what was causing them? Two weeks later, he came to Thompson for treatment. ![]() For Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook, his ordeal began during an August 2004 game against the Cincinnati Reds. On the mound, he was short of breath and dizzy, his pitching speed slacked off and he gave up a series of hits before being pulled from the game. “I started wondering, ‘Could I be creating this?’” “That was a real slap in the face,” she says now. Standard tests came back negative, and finally one specialist suggested the pain was in her head. For four hard years, she had bounced from one physician to another, trying to discover the cause of disabling pain above her collarbone and in her right arm. Thompson, MD, she was desperately in need of answers. TWO YEARS AGO, when Aubrey Turvey first visited vascular surgeon Robert W. On the rebound from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome: Aaron Cook is back in the game following surgery by Robert W. Misunderstood syndrome responds to delicate surgery
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