Hello,
My husband has recently been diagnosed with eagle syndrome. His right styloid is 6cm, and his left is 5cm.
While on vacation, we paid for a private CT and two local ENT surgeons confirmed his diagnosis. We reallllly pushed for the angio/venogram portion of the CT but the doctors said it wasn’t necessary to confirm jugular compression and refused to do the CTV. The ENT said the CT showed the jugular was fine.
It is VERY unlikely we can get the CTV when we return to Canada next week. Is it okay that we’re missing the venogram or does this throw a wrench in planning for next steps?
It’s not essential, firstly it depends on the symptoms your husband is having, does he have vascular symptoms? Info in the Newbies Guide Section about symptoms if you’re not sure, but things like dizziness, fainting, off-balance feeling, head & ear pressure, pulsatile tinnitus…) If he hasn’t then a CT with contrast isn’t really necessary. If he does have those symptoms then a referral to a doctor who is experienced with VES would be helpful, although obviously hard to do in Canada- are you able to/ thinking about travelling to the US for surgery? Or Turkey where you’ve visited? If so quite a few of the doctors like to do their own testing so it’s not necessary to stress about getting a CT with contrast for that.
I hope this helps?
Hi Jules,
Yes, most of his symptoms align with VES. He has headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, he gets this pressure in his head and his go-to description is that he “feels like his head is in a microwave” and sometimes he gets a whooshing sensation. Nerve pain in his face and neck, tightness of throat, throat pain and pain when swallowing. It’s the whole gambit. Because of that, we wanted the CTV but the doctors refused it.
We have a consult with another doctor tomorrow in Türkiye but we won’t have a chance to the see the surgeon in Istanbul on this trip. We’re hoping this person can give us more feedback on the scans because everything is going to slow to a crawl once we’re back in Canada.
Thank you for your valuable input. I’ve been reading through many of the threads and I am so grateful for the knowledge available here.
That’s a good description, his head feels like it’s in a microwave, I can relate to that from my past experience! It does sound vascular then…let us know how you get on with the other doctor you see
