@Nada - Things you can try to help reduce your pain are icing your neck for 15 min. every couple of hours. Use a thin cloth between the ice pack & your skin to prevent ice burns. If you can get gel ice packs, they work well because they conform to the shape of your neck. Having two ice packs is good so one can be in the freezer staying cold while you use the other one.
Another thing to try if you can get them are lidocaine patches. These have adhesive on one side & you can stick them on your neck & the lidocaine helps numb the nerve pain.
Since you have headaches, try sleeping with your head elevated at night. Start with an extra pillow & and if that doesnât help, add more. A wedge shaped pillow is very helpful if you can get one.
Nerve pain medication which is not an anti-inflammatory but is usually an anti-depressant or anti-seizure medication. A few that have helped some of our members are Gabapentin, Amitriptyline or Carbamazepine. There are many others as well. Nerve pain medications can take from 2-4 weeks to start really helping so if you decide to try one, youâll need to take it more than just a few days. These have side effects with the main one usually being to make you sleepy.
Some of our members have gotten good pain relief from taking a muscle relaxer. These are also prescription but can be very helpful. You would take this medication at night as it will make you very relaxed & maybe sleepy, too.
I hope your surgery date is scheduled sooner than 3-4 months. Iâm sorry there arenât any very experienced doctors where you live, but at least youâve found some who know about ES & are willing to try to help you. Make sure you talk to them about cutting your styloid back as close to your skull base as possible because that will give you the best results.
Based on the surgical experience of our members, we think the transcervical (through the neck) approach is safer & provides better access to the styloids, & often a better overall recovery. However, we have members whoâve had excellent outcomes from the transoral (through the throat) approach, too. Regardless of how surgery is done, the most important thing is for the styloid to be cut back close to the skull base & for the stub(s) left behind to be smoothed off. Itâs also important that any large sections of calcified stylohyoid ligament that arenât attached to the styloid get removed.
I hope this information helps you.
Here is a link to a post about ES surgery that will give you more information:
ES Information- Treatment: Surgery
