I Was Just Down at UCLA

@Snapple2020 I have looked into the CT much more deeply this time but I found something that is significant in terms of your right sided symptoms, mainly the presyncope/dizziness but it needs to be verified with dynamic angiogram that you are about to go under. Don’t know if these have been found when the radiologist looked into this CT Angio but I found 4 pieces of what appears to be calcifications along the Carotid Artery (primarily External Carotid Artery).I do not know whether these fragments are the remnants of the removed Styloid/stylohyoid ligaments (not sure what was removed) or whether they are naturally formed calcifications. Regardless, they are of great significance if they prove to be compressing/irritating either the ECA or the ICA intermittently when you move your head/neck or hyper-extend it or in a car driving on bumpy road. According to the literature, irritation or compression of the ECA can also cause weaknesses on the Arms along with dizziness and presyncope (see the documents at the bottom). This is all relevant in your case but needs to be established with Dynamic Angiogram. I also found that the ECA signal to be bit weaker in around the 3rd piece of the calcified fragment which lies in between the branches of the ICA & ECA (not sure how significance of it is). I am not sure if this is the only culprit as your EDS also put you at risk of other intermittent compression of other vessels but felt the need to report it anyway.

First piece of the four calcifications (cyan arrow) sits on top of jugular vein (blue arrow). It is important to note that It resembles the remaining styloid but this is not the remnant of the removed styloid. This is the 1st piece of 4 calcifications.

This is the 2nd piece of the calcification (cyan arrow) and is resting against the External Carotid Artery (ECA) (red arrow) potentially irritating it.

This is the 3rd piece of the calcification (cyan arrow) and lies in between the External Carotid Artery (ECA) (red arrow) and Internal Carotid Artery (ICA) (yellow arrow). It can potentially mess with either of them. Also important to note that ECA signal attenuates here

This is the 4th piece of the calcification (cyan arrow) and is very close to the External Carotid Artery (ECA) (red arrow).

3D images of the fragments of calcifications (blue arrow) and the tiny remnant of the styloid process (green arrow)



This document is a good read about different variants of Eagle Syndrome. This is where I got the screenshot above.

Source : https://emergeortho.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/1-s2.0-S2468781220301399-main-2.pdf

It was also posted here in the research area by Andrea who I believe co-wrote this study.

WESTBROOK et al. (2020) - Eagle’s syndrome, elongated styloid process and new evidence for pre-manipulative precautions for potential cervical arterial dysfunction – Doctor info and research article

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