Find a surgeon
Finding an experienced TOS specialist is the single most consequential surgical decision you'll make. These are the resources most consistently cited for identifying surgeons with documented TOS specialization.
Directory
TOS Outreach — Surgeon Finder
Community-compiled directory of TOS surgeons organized by region, with notes on specialization and surgical approach.
Clinical
TOS Outreach — Symptom Reference
Clinical symptom guides and diagnostic information to help patients understand what they're experiencing before a consult.
Support communities
Online communities where TOS patients share experiences, ask questions, and find support. Each has its own culture, and the caveats below matter.
Reddit
r/ThoracicOutletSupport
The primary online community for TOS patients: treatment experiences, surgeon recommendations, peer support, and ongoing discussion. This subreddit is the source for the 382 posts behind the research documents on this site.
Facebook
TOS Facebook Group
Active Facebook support group for TOS patients and families.
Community caveat: some Facebook TOS groups favor pro-surgery perspectives and moderate content accordingly. One user (Post #10) warns that admins may be surgeon-affiliated.
Facebook
TOS Support Group
20,000+ member Facebook group for TOS discussion and support.
Community caveat: same moderation pattern as other Facebook TOS groups, so balance negative surgical experiences against the Reddit community.
Educational resources
Websites and video content on TOS mechanics, conservative treatment, and rehabilitation. These are the sources cited most frequently across the TOS community.
Web
TOS Outreach
Dedicated TOS patient advocacy with clinical information, surgeon directory, and community resources. The most complete patient-facing TOS site.
Web
MSK Neurology — Kjetil Larsen
The most-referenced conservative TOS treatment resource in the community. In-depth clinical writing on diagnosis, anatomy, and non-surgical approaches. The source for much of the serratus-strengthening and scalene-strengthening (not stretching) approach described on the conservative treatment page.
YouTube
Zac Cupples
Physical therapist and PRI practitioner, frequently cited by the TOS community for full-body mechanics and rehabilitation programming.
YouTube
Bill Hartman
Strength coach and rehabilitation specialist. Cited for posture, mechanics, and exercise programming relevant to TOS.
Specialized clinicians
TOS-specific clinical specialties worth knowing about when assembling a treatment team beyond a surgeon.
PT / MD
TOS-specialized physical therapists
Generic PT is not the same as TOS-specialized PT, a distinction community members and published data both emphasize. TOS Outreach's directory is a starting point for finding TOS PTs by region. OCS certification and FAAOMPT/AAOMPT-recognized fellowship training can also be useful signals of advanced orthopedic/manual-therapy experience, but should be paired with questions about actual TOS cases.
OT / CHT
Maggie Strode, OTR/L, CHT, MLD-T — Dexterity Hand Therapy (Long Island City, NY)
Dexterity Hand Therapy is Maggie Strode's private occupational therapy practice in Long Island City. Sessions are one-on-one, and the practice covers the whole upper quarter, shoulder through hand. She treats it as one connected system, tracing symptoms in the arm or hand back through the shoulder, the scapula, and the way the whole body moves. Nerve problems are her daily work. She sees patients across the full range of nerve involvement, from mild irritation to long-standing compression, and TOS patients are a familiar part of that mix. With TOS her approach is conservative and deliberately slow. She figures out where the nerves are under pressure and why, then builds strength in the shoulder and the areas around it to take that pressure off. No fixed protocol. She shifts tools and emphasis as progress happens.
Disclosure: the site author is a patient at this practice. Listed from direct experience, with her permission. No payment or affiliation.
Research & literature
Peer-reviewed research and scientific literature on TOS, for patients who want to go deeper into the clinical evidence.
Site
TOS Resources — Literature page
600+ peer-reviewed articles from PubMed, searchable by topic, author, or journal. Auto-refreshed monthly via a GitHub Actions workflow that queries seven TOS-specific search terms.
PubMed
PubMed — Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
National Library of Medicine database, with direct access to the full primary literature on TOS.