Am I having the correct scan

Hi, recently my physiologic dentist saw evidence of Eagle’s on scans I had done in 2012 by an oral surgeon. She wrote a letter to my pain management doctor requesting that he order cat scans of my head, neck and cervical spine . Today I got an email from the Imaging center as my scan is tomorrow. He only ordered a soft tissue scan of my neck. It says it will take only 15 minutes. Will this be enough to show if I have Eagle’s? I have dislocated jaw joints with arthritis in them and have had an unnecessary brain surgery, an MVD, behind my ear in 2010. I am in extreme pain from TN, ON and TMD symptoms.
Please let me know what type of scan is really needed. I pray it will show up on the soft tissue scan of my neck. I’ve been extremely distressed since seeing that he didn’t order what she requested.

I’m not entirely sure what they mean by a soft tissue scan- if that’s an ultrasound or what? (We’re not doctors but just people who’ve experienced ES ourselves here) I’ve not heard of a scan being labelled as that before- but as ES is caused by elongated styloid processes (which are bone) & also by calcified ligaments, I doubt that this will show enough. It could be useful to rule out other things, but not to evaluate for ES.
A CT scan as your dentist requested is the best scan to have- if you can get a CT with contrast this will show if any blood vessels are being compressed, if you have any vascular symptoms (like dizziness; there’s info about that in the ES Info pages)
By the way- ES can cause problems with the Trigeminal nerve, so it may be that which is causing your pain? Not sure if you know, but Ben’s Friends have a facila pain group with lots of good info & support for TN &ON if you need it.
I hope that you get to read this in time & can get a proper scan sorted out! Good luck, let us know how you get on…

Thank you. I so hope so as well. I want these tests to be what I need. If they are not then all I know to do is get the dentist to help me by referring me to one of the ENT surgeons on your list, I asked my pain management doc about that and he basically said that was jumping the gun. Said Eagle’s usually doesn’t cause problems sigh.

Yes dizziness but not every day. The osteopath who does cranial and neck manipulations adjusts something that usually fixs that symptom for awhile.

The doc who said I have Eagle’s sent me a FB message where he had copied the picture from former diagnostic and drew on it, pointing out the problem. I doubt they will want to see that but I’ve thought about asking the tech tomorrow to look at that and ask if my scans will be able to show that area.

I’m going for cat scans not MRIs, had both in 2012. That’s when I was told I had a bone spur causing the pain on that side. It was an oral surgeon who said my TN symptoms were all coming from ‘my jaw joint mess’.

It’s a shame that neurologists, whom TN patients are first sent to, don’t seem to even know about Eagle’s.

Thank you for your well wishes.