Hi hemidemt,
Yes, he will remove part of the styloid, not the whole thing, but it will be more like 2 inches that he removes, not 2 cm. I asked him if he would do the external approach and remove the whole thing, but he said he is not comfortable with that. He told me that there are a lot of nerves there and could easily get damaged. I have read posts that you made previously about having the doctor remove the whole styloid, but unfortunately, I don't have that option at this point. I have made my mind up that I am going to remain hopeful that this procedure will help me, and if it doesn't, then I will look into other options.
Like I said in my post, I haven't looked into the Mayo Clinic option yet, so I don't know if it is a good place to be treated or not. Just trying to share some info that I have heard about. It's worth looking into, I would think.
Thanks for your advice!
heidemt said:
Hi Farm Girl,
I saw that your styloid was about 5 cm and Dr. Witterick said he would remove about 2 cm. And he also mentioned that some people get relief from the surgery and some don't. I wanted to tell you that if he is only getting the styloid down to 3 cm or so, that will be enough to cure some people, but not all. Some people have issues and pain with a shorter styloid. So I don't know if you could mention that to him or if he would be receptive or not.
One of the most experienced surgeons with Eagles is Dr. Samji in California and I saw that Isaiah mentioned the other day that he has revised his criteria for Eagles to be 2.5 cm or greater. So he's seen a number of patients who were symptomatic with shorter styloids. And I had pain from a piece of styloid that was about 2 cm.
Also, I mentioned recently that the Mayo Clinic in the US has not been a good place for Eagles patients to go. They've been told they don't treat Eagles there. I have no idea if it's also true for Mayo in Canada, but it would be worth a phone call or email to check before anyone goes there.