Thoughts / advice?

This will be super long winded, I apologize in advance but I’m in the process of getting diagnosed / figuring out what’s wrong

~ 10 years ago I noticed pain in my trap/neck (former dental assistant, spent a lot of days leaned over / reaching) did PT, chiro, massage, etc. it would come and go, and I’d deal with it as needed. As the years went on I noticed my arm feeling heavy, and a weakness going into my bicep when I’d do certain movements, over head lifting, and scrubbing type motion, reaching etc to the point I’d have to switch arms because it would give out. I also can’t lay in certain positions, and I have to prop my arm up because my trap and shoulder would just kill me.

Last year (July 2025) I decided to see ortho for possible cortisone injections. This led me on an extremely annoying journey of PT, MRI’s, shots, the works. Nothing helped. Still experiencing this insane trap pain, weakness into my bicep, pain with positioning, and not able to use my arm. cervical spine MRI was normal, EMG was normal, so ortho finally suggested a debridement of my shoulder to see if that cleared things up as the next step, but mentioned TOS as a possibility as well. He did say however the specialist here in Seattle is very strict with his patient load, and you have to do XYZ before you can get a referral, so he felt like this was the best best step.

May 2026, I do the debridement. They find mild to moderate bursitis in two places. I’m currently two weeks post op, saw the surgeon. She asked about my symptoms and while it’s early yes, I feel like I’ve slightly improved but I do still have this ache in my trap which gives me pause. She made a comment about following up in a month to see if it improved, and if not looking into TOS more.

I don’t know if my symptoms match up to TOS? While some things do, others don’t. Has anyone experienced anything similar? I’m kind of at my whits end with all of this, and while I want my pain gone, I’ll be super bummed if I did a shoulder surgery for what feels like nothing.

Thank you if you got this far!