Hey everyone! I’m a 34-year-old man from Norway, and I’ve been dealing with throat pain on my right side for about 6 months. I have a specialist appointment scheduled in January, but since the level of knowledge in this forum seems very high, I was wondering if what I have might be bilateral Eagle syndrome.
If anyone would be willing to take a look at my images, I’d really appreciate it.
Left side:
Right side:
ossification of the styloid ligament
Styloid prosess
Your left side styloid is very long and pretty pointy at the end so could well be causing symptoms, the right side is normal sized, but the section of calcified ligament could well irritate nerves, we’ve had members with smaller sections of calcifications which cause symptoms…
Looking at your scan, it looks like the C1 process is pushing into the internal jugular vein both sides, although it’s not as compressed as some of us have had.
What symptoms do you have?
@Kb83 - Welcome to our forum! With your very long left styloid & significant stylohyoid ligament calcification on the right, it looks to me like you have bilateral ES. I’ve annotated your images, but from the way you labeled them in your post, it seems like you already know what you’re looking at.
ES is defined as having 1) elongated styloid(s) or 2)calcified stylohyoid ligament(s), but normal length styloids, or 3) a combination of styloid elongation & s-h ligament calcification. You fall into the final category.
It looks like your right IJV is dominant, but it doesn’t look compressed to me in the image you posted. However, it looks to me like the left IJV may be compressed by C1, & maybe your left styloid, & perhaps by some soft tissues like the SCM or other vascular or soft tissues further down which I’ve circled & noted.
Your cervical spine is quite straight which indicates you’ve lost your lordotic curve. Loss of lordosis puts the styloids & greater horns of the hyoid into closer contact w/ nerves & blood vessels in the neck. We know that loss of lordosis in the cervical spine can be from all the looking down we do in our daily lives i.e. at cell phones, computers, books, etc., but there has been speculation that when IJV compression is present w/ elongated styloids, it may be a defensive mechanism put in place by the body to try to give the IJVs more space so they can open a bit when compressed.
Cervical lordosis can be restored by doing gentle PT exercises but it takes consistency & time to get it to come back. We suggest not working on that until your ES surgery(ies) have taken place & you’re well recovered. Here’s an article w/ helpful information on the topic of cervical lordosis:
Are you seeing one of the doctors on our Doctors List who is in your country? Please let us know how your appointment goes.
