What does this mean – cervical rib and thoracic outlet syndrome?
OK. Your spine has different sections – the cervical vertebrae, in the neck; thoracic vertebrae, in the chest; lumbar vertebrae, in the lower back; and the sacrum, at the back of the pelvis. Normally ribs come out of the thoracic vertebrae, but you have an extra one, coming out of the lowest cervical vertebra. It won’t be as big as regular ribs, so you probably won’t have noticed it yourself. The thoracic outlet is the circle formed by the top thoracic vertebra, the first rib on either side, and the breastbone at the front, so everything that goes from the chest into the neck passes through it. So this includes the tips of the lungs (which extend higher up than you think), arteries, veins, nerves etc. Your extra rib is squashing some of these structures a little. By far the most common problem with it is the brachial plexus being squashed. This is the network of nerves in this region that go down into the arm to supply movement and sensation, so this problem can produce weakness and ti
