I’m glad you’re massaging your incision area. That’s good & will be helpful in the long run. I’m expect PT prior to your ES surgery didn’t help because your symptoms were being treated rather than the cause (elongated styloids) & the cause would just recreate the symptoms after your PT sessions.
I’m glad you’ve been in touch w/ Dr. Dewan’s ofc. There is no one closer to you. Dr. Cognetti in Philadelphia is the next closest doctor I know of who does HBS surgeries otherwise there’s a doctor in Salt Lake City and one in Los Angeles.
We have two members who had HBS surgeries toward the end of last year - @a_catindisguise w/ Dr. Dewan & @F_t w/ a doctor in Australia. Both have said the recovery has been on the slow side, but both are feeling a tremendous amount better. Dr. Hackman’s opinion about surgery for HBS may be based on patients who didn’t see experienced hyoid bone surgeons just like we have members who had poor outcomes from ES surgery when they saw surgeons who weren’t experienced or were too conservative & didn’t remove enough of the styloid(s).
Here are a couple of links to discussion threads for you to read: