Take it easy and take care of yourself- are you hot as in a high temperature hot? Keep an eye on that 
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Temp is ok 37.6 but I’m taking 1000mg paracetamol and 500mg ibuprofen so it’s probably mask it. The incision site feels warm and sore, but looks pretty good. Think I’m just feeling rubbish today but will keep an eye on it.
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Hmm, might be worth ringing them, sounds like you could have an infection brewing?
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@Jules I don’t think it looks infected to look at… in fact probably good for day 2. I’ll take my temp when my meds re due and see if it’s up. It’s probably just me worrying!
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Mr Hughes told me straight after I woke up from the anaesthetic. It’s a bit vague ‘cos I was still a bit drugged but he told me mine was 4cm and chunky. I am confused though and want ask him whether that was just the styloid or including the ligament. It seems like a fully calcified ligament plus styloid would be way more than 4cm and my incision is far longer than that.
I took off the dressing a couple of days ago and was fairly traumatised. It is much longer and much lower down than I was anticipating 
Mine was lower than I expected too but It does seem to sit nicely in the neck fold when turning my head to the side. Be warned, mine got alot worse looking after a day or two of having removed the steri strips. Initially there was almost nothing to see under them, then the scar seems to swell up over the next two days and make itself much more visible and bumpy and lumpy. It’s not turning red in places too and my neck feels more tight around the scar site. I suppose this may tie in to the different phases of repair and is to be expected. It may also explain my symptoms feeling worse over the last few days too. I had started to feel quite well, then got alot more dizzy and head pressure in last three days, at the same time as noticing the scar getting redder and harder.
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Yes there is a lot of healing and stretching etc that needs to happen isn’t there. Sorry you got worse again; everyone says that healing can be very up and down. I am trying to do gentle jaw stretches a couple of times a day to stop everything from seizing up.
Mr Hughes said he had to cut through a fair amount of muscle and that must take a lot of effort from the body to heal it I imagine.
I saw before that you said you had steristrips and I wondered about that. I didn’t have any steristrips, just glue. I guess he adapts depending on incision and skin type or something 
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@Warrick @Jacqui I really want to know what he took out, mine both measured 4.6cm in January! I kind of want an idea of what size the remaining one might be! The notes say I had glue and strips. I’ll be keeping the steri strips on as long as possible! I think with all my scars, they’ve flared up when I’ve taken the dressing off. It should heal pretty fast.
I need to call to book the post op appointment, so I’m going to see if I can find out how big it was (&if he did take a photo)!
Feeling pretty good since my last post. Too good! Been tidying the house and did 3 loads of washing!! Going to rest now, as it sounds like it’ll come back at me!! Sore, but pain not bad (thinking of cutting down the paracetamol as on 1000mg) & just taking ibuprofen. The disassociation and horrible vision issues are bothering me the most now, with bouts of temporary dizziness and tinnitus flaring up. Feeling anxious about whether or not my worst symptoms will go away or not. I need to go back to work soon, I’ve got so much riding on it. I’m so impatient … day 2 
Hope you all feel better soon!
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Glad that you haven’t got an infection @BabzieAM , just take it easy & don’t overdo it or you will suffer! I know it’s hard when you’ve got family…take care
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Further to your earlier comment about blood pressure…I was just looking on Mychart and found some stuff I hadn’t seen before, including what I think must have been my blood pressure readings during the op. I had quite a few readings of 65/29 and 58/44. This seems rather low! I will ask Mr Hughes about that when I have my follow up appointment…
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@Jacqui Wow and I thought mine were low! I assume it’s just the anaesthetic. I’ve had a few ops, but never seem my BP readings. My HR was mostly 40s, but that’s normal for me, but the BP wasn’t.
I was so smug what an easy time I was having with swelling (although neurologically normal crappy still)… managed to shower and wash my hair yesterday (day 5) then BAM a delayed relapse for me! I think the day 3-5 bit might be a day 5-7 for me!
Hope you’re starting to feel much better now.
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@Warrick @jacqui Hey, is it normal to suddenly have a bad day? Up to date 5 I was good, managed to shower, wash my hair, clean the house, dropped the paracetamol… then I started to get dizzy… 3am day 6 woke up in pain and have felt awful all day! Raging tinnitus like electricity buzzing through my head, I feel swollen inside, even my ear canal feels swollen, nausea… is this the peak of inflammation? I’m literally going back to bed. Just wondered if anyone else had this at all???
Hey,
I cant remember exactly but I did have ups and downs. I think I did suddenly get worse around day 5 after having felt pretty good before that. then slowly improving. I had another sudden dip around 2-3 weeks. I think this coincided with removing the steri strips and then the inflammation seemed to worsen at the wound site as it suddenly bulged out and internally felt more tight. This thankfully is also now slowly regressing but felt awful for 3-5 days.
I guess the healing phases all being about their own challenges but in my mind the space created by removing the Styloid is good initially then gets consumed by scar tissue and inflammation perhaps, before slowly going away?
Hope you start feeling better soon! I know I’m desperately hoping my slow improvements continue and hopefully pick up in pace.
I would say my dips at days 3-5 and 2-3 weeks have been slightly worse than pre surgery which is always going to be disheartening! So hoping soon I will remain better than pre surgery!
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@warrick thanks for the reassurance. I think there’s a lot of healing going on inside. Everything so far was pre surgery level (although the intense aching in my face went right away), but today the tinnitus is the worst it’s ever been and the tiredness has hit me again out of the blue. I’ll ride it out. Back to work Monday and worrying I might not feel well still. Glad you have some improvement, even if slow.
I definitely remember overdoing it on the first few days feeling great and suddenly spending a day in bed nakerd so possibly what you are going through right now too!
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@Warrick I think it’s easily done. I was thinking about when I might be able to get on the spin bike and how I’d definitely be ok to get side 2 done if I needed to. Today I’ve failed to brush my hair or dress properly. I’m never patient. I’m going to try my best to slow down.
I think I suddenly felt worse around then too. Ups and downs seem normal.
The latest thing, for me, is that my neck and jaw are suddenly really tight and clicky and headache is worse too. I think my neck muscles are tightening up and affecting everything. I am trying to do some gentle stretching and will hope that this subsides soon.
Ups and downs are really common @BabzieAM , it does sound as if maybe you overdid it a bit when you were feeling good, we’ve all made that mistake! Take care now so hopefully things can settle before you have to go back to work
@Warrick , your post made me laugh- I misread knackered & thought you said you went to bed naked , I wondered what that had got to do with healing from surgery, I don’t think that usually makes a difference 
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@Jules @Warrick I totally saw naked first too!
Thanks for the reassurance. Everything’s kicking off today!
The numbness seems to be going on my face… maybe it was hurting before, I just hadn’t noticed.
Early night and back on the pain relief!
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Haha, sorry about that! Probably my spelling! It has been warm recently, but not that warm!
I’m still taking celecoxib, did they prescribe that for you?
Also still on apixaben and amitriptyline, although I have been slowly weining off the amitriptyline.
The apixaben seems to make a huge difference though as it improves things quickly every time Ive stopped and then start taking it again!
Currently weighing up my chances of getting NHS to run a post op venogram in a few months time to assess for any change. I’ve just emailed my neurologist who refused my venogram before hand saying that was a silly idea and that I just had PTSD… Hopefully she will learn something about jumping to diagnosese without proper investigation. They also sat on my MRI scan report for 3 months after the report was done before sending me the results! Completely unacceptable isn’t it!
And my urgent ENT referral, despite confirming that a CT had already shown the styloid to be a problem is going nowhere as they refuse to pass me to a consultation until I have had the full audiology tests done. But their water squirty in your ear machine has broken and I’ve been waiting 4 months for them to reschedule! It’s painfully bad at the moment isnt it!
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