I am on day 16 since my bilateral surgery with Dr. Hackman and wanted to see if anyone had some thoughts on the following:
4 days ago, after flying home from UNC, I started having more tightness in the throat region. Tonight it got to the point where I considered an ER visit just to rule out anything or whether we should have an order of prednisone. I am going to email Dr. Hackman too. The actual airway feels like it is harder and harder to breathe, but I am wondering if the remaining swelling in the head is moving that direction.
my entire neck feels like it is bruised, and I have a hard time with anything touching my skin from my chest up.
Please let me know your thoughts. And, yes, I am still very excited for my future an glad I had the surgery.
Hi @JPB - A course of prednisone could be helpful with your throat situation. It’s a bit past the time when swelling would normally be that bad but then again you had bilateral surgery so the swelling could be prolonged from that.
Having a sore neck is also not uncommon but having it be as sore as you’ve described isn’t common. It could be your nerves are beginning to heal & that’s making your skin hypersensitive. Good idea to ask Dr. Hackman about both situations.
@JPB - when you say tightness - does it feel like a hard brick feeling or as if you cannot breath? Reason I ask is that I am also 3 weeks into my left side recovery and my throat still hurts when I swallow or move my tongue around and the left side of the neck feels like concrete - yawning is a real challenge
Sorry to hear of your recovery problems. I recognise some of the symptoms you describe.
For me throat worsens with trapped blood levels increasing. I know my body does use my facial veins to drain excess blood trapped in skull. After first op while slow walking I would have to stop as felt like choking & not easy to swallow. As trapped fluid reduced so did the neck symptoms. At day 3 on left side the trapped fluid gets hard & feels like concrete. I know as fluid reduces this will improve.
My neck area has also become hypersensitive and body does not like anything touching my neck now. I am hoping this will improve once things settle. I read that there are treatment programs to help desensitise skin that has got too sensitive but have yet to have that reach the top of my health priorities list .
Thank you! I went to the ER again today as requested by my surgeon and had the typical work up. CT Scan, blood draw, IV meds, EKG, etc. and was eventually released home after 7 hrs with additional meds. I will speak with my surgeon tomorrow about the prednisone since the ER MD wasn’t going to prescribe that without Dr. H.'s approval first.
Thank you for sharing your insight into your condition post-op. I can fill and move around with my hand fluid from my face and chin in light of putting on significant water weight within days of having the surgery. I went back to the ER today and spent time getting some tests and additional meds.
I’m a little shocked with the water weight you have mentioned - this is the first I have read such a by product - what additional tests are you having done if you don’t mind me asking?
I had my two week post op appointment on the 11th November 2022 where my consultant reviewed. It all looks good and is healing well (visually) - he did say that it will take about 6-8 weeks for things to be a lot better pain wise -
For now, I’m not sure what more tests I could request, I think it’s part and parcel of having such a procedure carried out - I have also noted that for the past two weeks, I have a constant sweet taste in my mouth
I had bilateral with Hackman , May 9 this year. Sorry to hear you are suffering. I honestly had no problems directly after surgery. I was on oxycodone and Tylenol and took two rounds of oxy. Everything was great on that medication. Never had any problems until 114 or 5 months out from surgery. Now I’m having vertigo and occasionally pain in both sides of throat. Before that , went through a couple weeks of choking incidents that came out of nowhere, just by turning my head. Serious, let’s call the ambulance choking .
After that severely dry eyes. I feel like I’m still going thru the process of healing. At least, I hope so. Maybe some oxy will help you. Definitely need some meds. Didn’t He send you home with meds.
Hi there
As you know I had surgery the week after you with Dr Hackman.
I had to really struggle to get in touch with him to get a dose pack of steroids. I shared this feedback with him at my follow up appointment last week. I have had significant issues with his office and still am with communication and getting info to him. He was very appreciative of me sharing this information as they are working on making that whole process and experience better for the patients. It’s extremely frustrating for him I could tell. Anyways, I digress. I finally got the steroid dose packed helped a lot at the time. I did also provide feedback to Dr H during my post op appointment that I don’t know how I would’ve made it through that week without the steroids. I only wished I had been prescribed them at discharge. I think this kind of feedback is extremely helpful and needed to hopefully change the mindset for future surgeries for patients going forward. Just my opinion.
Now here I am it will be 4 weeks this Friday and I honestly feel worse than ever. Doesn’t help I got plagued with a cold but the pain in my jaw came back !!! Ugh!! Thankfully @vdm came to my rescue and reminded me to not get too alarmed. I tagged him in hopes he will pop in here and share that awesome article that he did with me. (I don’t know how to do it) but it seems like my post op “honeymoon” phase is coming to an end and things are starting to come to life again. I currently don’t love it and am very uncomfortable with my neck. I am continuing to sleep upwards and I am back to take ibuprofen again more regularly again to try to help with my neck just feels super tight like you said and extremely uncomfortable. I try to massage as I feel comfortable doing so. But I would say this week has been the worse so far for me. Probably doesn’t help I am back to work as of yesterday too.
What types of test did they give you in ER? What did they suggest as next steps?
I definitely suggest keeping on Dr H office regarding the steroid dose pack. Not sure if they gave you the neck bra thing either after surgery but honestly find the more pressure on the neck area the better. It’s like support.
I totally feel where you are at right now. Unfortunately with these new symptoms the anxiety has definitely been increased for me so working hard to keep that reduced as much as possible.
Keep us posted please and like I said hopefully @vdm will pop in and chime in.
I keep telling myself; this too shall pass!
That’s the fantastic summary of how nerves heal by @1speechpick
@Ddmarie also keep in mind, while the discomfort, pain, anxiety increases - your chances of dying, getting long-term damage, or other dangerous/harmful long-term side effects are very very low compared to what they were at the time you were in the operating room. As I told someone, given that I was knocked out and unconscious for more than two hours, had four sharp knife wounds in my neck, two pieces of skull broken off and taken out, lots of nerves and tissue moved here and there, drugged with fentanyl and other substances, electro-shocked with nerve monitoring tools, and put back together afterwards - I am feeling damn good!
Will keep praying, it’s very normal to have ups & downs with recovery, so pleased try not to be anxious or discouraged…it was a really big surgery to have both sides done at the same time, & your neck is such a small space so any swelling will be really felt…Take it as easy as you can, sending you hugs
@Ddmarie This too shall pass. Like you I will be 4 weeks postop on Friday and I am yet to see my vision, tinnitus, head & facial pressure, brain fog, hearing improve. I keep reminding myself about the thin wall of Jugular vein which can easily be collapsed by swelling is still collapsed by swelling though I was hoping by now that it has subsided enough to feel a tiny bit improvement on my VES symptoms. So I hope things improve for both of us in 6 to 8 wks time.
I had some tests completed yesterday - everything from CT, checking for blood clots, X-ray, EKG, etc. I am going to begin a 5 day course of prednisone tomorrow.
A sweet taste - I imagine some might actually love that especially if it involved chocolate like my family devours.
@JPB Hey man - I had my bilateral styloidectomy with Hackman back at the end of February. I remember vividly that it was probably 4-6 weeks out before a lot of my throat swelling calmed down, and had lots of numbness, throat tightness, and many other symptoms for the first couple months after my procedure. Other than some residual TMJ soreness/tragus area soreness and one small area on my neck where feeling hasn’t come back 100% (can take a year or more), pretty much everything leveled out. I didn’t take steroids after my surgery, but in hindsight it would have helped a bit (I don’t handle them the best though, so I opted for ice and other anti-inflammatories). I considered a CT within the first 3 months after, but Hackman advised me that it won’t show as much until a lot of the swelling goes down as far as the IVJ’s were concerned. I also didn’t want the additional radiation exposure, as I’d already had several CT’s and those do add up over time. The swelling can affect anything from the vagus nerve/trigeminal nerve to the IJV’s, and those can cause a lot of odd, transitory symptoms. Obviously, if you ever feel anything is an emergency, don’t ignore it. But in my case, most of the things that I was super worried about the first 4-8 weeks got much better with time. Giving yourself time to rest, heal, and patience can be a huge part of recovery from such a major surgery.
I documented a lot of my post-op story and recovery process on here, so feel free to check that out. Best of luck healing!! We’re all in this together.
I hope that your issues post op are temporary and resolve soon. As I mentioned the healing can carry on for 16 weeks, so still very early days.
At this stage I’m not sure I’ll pursue any further tests although I’ve just woken up and the left side feels like a brick (very hard and I’d say painful to swallow). The sweet taste is also pretty abundant - I wonder if there had been any short term damage to the taste bud :s
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