Scanning tests with Injections to show TOS

Yesterday I travelled to Bristol again to see Dr Bradley who is an expert radiologist in TOS (among other things). He was able to show that my scalene muscles are very stuck together - there should be a gap of at least 8mm between them and in me it was much less on both sides. On scanning he was also able to show that I had a subluxging ulnal nerve at the elbow. This means that the ulnal nerve is slipping out of place at the elbow on both sides [bilaterally]. Rob had also found this on examination. Dr Bradley was able to show me and his assistants very clearly on scan, and I could certainly feel it - in fact it is sore on the left side. Dr Bradley said he would be mentioning this in his report, but that he couldn't tell if the surgeon would want to repair this now, or at a later date.

When I came in to see Dr Bradley he actually started by asking me to do the 3 minute test with my arms up - see images below after he had performed injections [my carer took images this morning]. When I first did the test I could only manage 12 seconds before symptoms became too much. After scanning my wrists, elbows, scalenes and pec minor muscles he performed injections involving lidocaine [local anaesthetic] and I am not sure what else [possibly botox] which he performed to the scalenes on both sides, this already reduced my pain with my arms up. He them added the pec minor injections and that improved my pain at rest as well. The assitant radiologist was lovely and they kept checking I was OK, although the injections didn't hurt nearly as much as I had feared. I then repeated the 3 minutes test, managing 3 minutes with complete ease. In fact I looked a different person. I looked much better than I had when I walked into the room. I had a difficult journey, and then there was a long wait to see Dr Bradley, and dreadful traffic and heavy rain meant in the end I only just managed to get my train home with ease. I also tried playing my recorder for about 25 minutes, and although there were still finger agility issues, there was no pain.

Once home, I had to repeat the 3 minute test and still had no problems doing so. I slept well at night without the usual interuptions of partly numb arms or tingling, pain, pins and needles. In the morning,  I repeated the 3 minute test, but the results had massively declined with 7 and 8 seconds respectively on the left arm [we repeated the test to be sure] and I managed 36 seconsds on the right arm. I had some pain already in the left arm both in testing and at rest, but the right arm is OK at rest. As soon as I peformed the test though to the left, I had symptoms. Here are some pictures of the 3 minute test. I have to repeat the test twice more today and technically tomorrow morning, although this may not be worth it if the results are as bad with the tests later today. The tests show for sure that providing diagnostic medication to the area resolves the problem, meaning that technically surgery should work. I need to keep taking any notes of changes and then will email Rob will all my results. The plasters you can see there are 4 (one is hidden to the right) are where  I had the injections, the higher ones are the scalenes muscles and the lower ones pec minor.

After repeating the test again, symptoms were again at 7/8 seconds on the left hand and about 12 on the right hand.