I was told I have many of the symptoms of Eagle’s Syndrome. My ENT ordered a CT of my neck, which I have a copy of. It’s hard to see much either way, at least from what I can see. Similarly, the radiology report said there is no issue in the neck, but did not look for Eagle’s one way or the other.
Is a CT of the neck sufficient to rule out ES? I’ve heard that others have had to have a CT of the lower portion of the skull to check for ES?
Also, for what its worth, I did see this show up on the scan. Does this appear to be a calcified SH ligament?
It’s hard to tell from your scan if that’s a calcified ligament or part of the styloid or something else. When I had my scan done for ES the radiology tech knew that’s what he was looking for so my CT scan specifically covered the part of my skull where the styloids, s-h ligaments and hyoid bone are. You might need another scan that looks more at the styloid/hyoid area.
Can you have them re-evaluate the scan and look for the styloid and ligaments? If they aren’t told to look for the styloid they often don’t report on it.
It does look like there’s some calcification there, doesn’t it? I would presume that could be the stylo-hyoid ligament … Redpill did a good reply recently about what to ask for with getting CT scan’s reviewed etc., here’s the link: Would like help on this
Thanks to all of you for your responses. I found a site where you can pay out of pocket to have a radiologist give you a second opinion (second opinions.com) and had them look at it. And, as I suspected, he diagnosed Eagles.
For the benefit of other members, can you give us a rough idea of how much this costs? And will be interested to see how the report will go down with other doctors?
Of course. It cost approximately $89 if you have a digital version of the scans that you can upload to the site (more if you have to mail a CD). It’s hard to tell who the radiologist is who is getting them, so the trust factor is limited.
Advantage was it gave me more of an ability to go back to my doctors and the initial radiologist who read them. Initial radiologist added to his report that the S-H ligament is calcified. I’ve seen two ENTs about this. The first told me he just didn’t agree with the report (he doesn’t see it; it only occurs on one side, etc) and sent me for a swallow study. The second ENT told me he agrees it is Eagle’s and wants to do the surgery intra-orally, which he has done 5 times before. I’m going to push for a 3D CT and look into seeing a surgeon with experience.
