Has anyone had difficultly controlling heart rate or BP (±) with traumatic hyper extension as a cause for carotid impingement by elongated styloids? With chronic movement in my neck my BP and HR will rise substantially, I sweat and become fatigued with a bad headache. At rest I have normal orthotic fuction, that is unless I rise from rest to fast. I’m only 47, no cardiac blockages, or problems with heart itself.
I'm not sure what you mean by traumatic hyper extension, but I did have trouble with my BP and HR when I did vigorous aerobic exercise prior to my first surgery. My BP would drop very low & my HR would elevate pretty high & refuse to recover once I stopped exercising. This caused me to feel very light-headed like I was going to pass out. It happened a couple of times so I stopped doing strenuous aerobic exercise & really haven't returned to it since as my other styloid began causing exercise induced symptoms. I've now had that one removed, too, and am still recovering. I figure I'll be able to resume life as was normal pre-ES by next spring.
The styloid processes are in between the Internal Carotid Artery External Carotid Artery, and very close to quite a few of the Cranial Nerves, including the Vagus Nerve, which is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, one of the functions being regulating heart rate. It could well be that when you move your head to certain angles it compresses the nerves/ blood vessels even more. Is it just getting up quickly which causes the sweating and headache, or actually doing exercise- as some of your symptoms, the headache and increased BP with exercise sound like I've had, which was caused by increased Intracranial Hypertension- a result of bilateral styloid compression of the jugular veins (which are also close to the SPs!). I had that with exercise. If it's getting up a bit quick causing it then it's more likely the arteries being affected. Headaches can be caused by artery or vein compression.
If it is just when you move your head back, then it is more likely the ECA or ICA affected and the Vagus nerve, I think. Have you had a CT with contrast to look at the blood vessels? Sorry, I can't remember your situation- are you considering surgery? That would pretty much be your only option to control these symptoms.
Both of my ICA are impinged by styloids as seen in 3D tomography. Autonomic functions overreact with continuous movement of exercise. My injury was kinetic in nature and resulted in multiple cervical surgeries and a cervical SCI. Styloids were only discovered when a carotid ultrasound spotted a 60% impingement on the right side. The inflammation has subsided and now the styloids sit just on the ICA bilateral sheath.
Preinjury, the autonomic cardiac function were great. Post, I was told I have the autonomic dysfunction of autonomic dysreflexia, but with a high HR, this is not normal for SCI dysreflexia, as it should be low.
The only time me BP/HR go low is when I’m resting or swimming. So anyways, the doctors ate looking at Bororeflex failure due to cervical Trauma (whiplash), surgical trauma, elongated styloid induced, or a combination. I physically feel as though I can do more, but my cardiac autonomic problems it’s impossible. I have read quite a bit about training physiologically if the initiating factor can be corrected…I.e. vascular surgery for styloids on ICA arteries.
I can't remember seeing anyone else on here with those probs, but krista3 has been diagnosed with POTS; she's having more tests at the moment to try to identify the cause, although hers started after ES surgery. I hope that you can have surgery, and hopefully get back to a more normal life!