I wanted to see how many people had any hyoid bone involvement with their Eagle Syndrome. My scan shows an elongated hyoid bone and rotation of the bone as well. My surgeon seems to only want to address the styloid process that is protruding into my tonsillar fossa. My fear is that most of my symptoms may be as a result of the hyoid bone, and if we go ahead with surgery to remove my styloid process that I will find myself in the same chronic pain that I am experiencing now. If any of you have hyoid bone involvement, did you have it resected? And if so, did you have any relief once the surgery was performed?
I am not certain if my situation was exactly like yours but I will tell you what I experienced and hopefully it will help. Last Monday my doctor removed over 4 inches from my right side and only an inch on the left - only because it wasn't as long. My hyoid bone was affected. I don't know how both sides where affected - since the left wasn't as long - but I felt pain, popping and a snapping sensation in my hyoid bone equally on both sides.
In my case each side of my eagles was different. The right side which had a boney prominence coming in at the right tonsil. The left side wasn't as noticeable but it still had horrid side effects. At first my doctor was going to do a second procedure for the left side but he decided on his own to go ahead and take care of both at once (praise god!).
As I said, my surgery was last Monday. I feel like a million bucks! Everyone said I would be in so much pain because both tonsils where removed.. but people say this because they have never felt the wrath Eagle's Syndrome.
Monday as I woke up my vision was clear, and my hearing exceptional. I kept hounding the nurses with a million thank you's and was insisting they pull my doctor out of surgery to tell him how incredible I felt and still feel.
I would ask the doctor if your hyoid bone will be resolved without addressing it during surgery OR ask if he/she can take a look at it during surgery to make certain surgical assistance isn't needed in effort too avoid future surgery.
Wow. So glad to hear that u feel so great. Congrats!
My doc is being very very conservative. He kind of wants to take a process of elimination approach. If he removes the styloid process and I still have pain then he will address the hyoid. But I really don’t want to have multiple surgeries if I can avoid it.
My scans show elongated styloids (3.3cm and 3.1cm) and elongation of the hyoid bone and calcification at both the hyoid and styloid on the stylohyoid ligament. Per my doctor, the calcification was worse at my hyoid so when I had surgery he removed the greater horn of my hyoid which was scraping on my spine and the entire ligament up to my styloid, but did not remove my styloid. I am still not sure I understand why he didn't remove the styloid except he thought the hyoid was to blame for my pain. Unfortunately, the surgery hasn't really made any impact for me so I am looking to go back and get the styloid removed now. So in hindsight I would say if they can address both issues at once, do it.
I had calcification at the hyoid end of the ligament. The surgeon wanted to take out this portion of the ligament first including clipping off the lesser cornu of the hyoid. This actually made by swallowing difficulty worse unfortunately. Everytime I swallow my thyroid cartilage (below the hyoid) jumps to the opposite side to my surgery and then jumps back into place. Also a get a crunching noise if I swallow when looking down. The hyoid feels like it is pulling to one side. If yours is pulling to one side now then perhaps surgery will help it. In my case now no one wants to touch it for fear of making it worse again. All the best - choose a good surgeon!
Was the styloids removed intraorally? Did you also have a tonsillectomy to remove your styloids. Were the styloids completely removed or only partially? How are you doing now?