Hepworth visit Denver

Any suggestions on where to stay or anything that will make my trip easier. We are driving in from east Texas. I’m coming in to see Sarah for testing for a few days. I do have confirmed ijv severe compression at c1 I was Fargens patient. He attempted to decompress me last year but left my styloid. My opposite side was occluded and tiny looking but Fargen stented it in Feb. has not helped much. So I have had extensive testing and my next option is a shunt. Hepworth is my Hail Mary

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Hopefully those who’ve travelled to see him will give you some suggestions, I just want to wish you well! I hope that Dr Hepworth can help you, sounds like you’ve been through an awful lot already :hugs:

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Yes, I had decompression surgery in August 2024 by Fargen and he left my styloid and so I’ve still got a problem there at C1. He was kinda new with this. I was his 35th case. When I went to see him in February of this year he went ahead and tinted my tiny occluded left side. Follow up imaging shows blood flowing through that stent but most of my blood flow prior to any interventions was attempting to go through my large dominant right side. I have massive collateral down the back of my neck. What is your story?

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I’m UK, I had bilateral IJV compression, but it was just by the styloids, not the C1. I was very lucky & the first surgery helped my vascular symptoms very quickly, I had a year between surgeries, that was about 9 years ago. If I get very stressed, or fly then I get a bit of head pressure again, but the surgery was successful. I would never have found out about the surgeon if I hadn’t read about him on this site.
I’m sorry that you’ve not been helped by your surgeries so far :hugs:

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@Kmoore464 - There are a number of reasonable hotels in the area around Dr. Hepworth’s office which is called Cherry Creek.

Staybridge Suites offers a discount to people who are there for medical care so you might want to check it out. I know at least one of our members has stayed there several times & been very happy with it. It’s ~1 mi. from Dr. Hepworth’s ofc.

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I did make a reservation at Staybridge, but I did not know they had a medical rate. I’ll ask them about that. It’s good to know that people have stayed there and that it’s very close and that they like it because I’m not familiar with the area at all thank you so much for that reassurance. I wouldn’t be so stressed now.

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I’m glad I could help! :blush:

LCR shunt ? If there’s a venous congestion the shunt won’t fix, it’ll fix the IIH symptoms only?

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We try to educate our members that if a stent or shunt is necessary, it should only be put in place AFTER the vein is decompressed. I’ve seen a CT image of a stent placed to try to open an IJV that compressed by styloid/C1 & the pressure from the styloid/C1 actually bent the stent in half & effectively totally closed off the IJV. It doesn’t make sense to me that a surgeon would place any type of “drainage” element in a vein that had external compressors w/o removing those first.