Hello again,
I’m a little stressed out right now because my surgery has been scheduled for June 3. While I want to get this taken care of, I’m also concerned because it is happening somewhat quickly. Anyway, both of my IJVs are compressed by the styloids & transverse process of the C1. I am wondering if anyone who has a similar issue has pain at the back of the head in addition to the other symptoms? I have pressure/pain at the base of the skull right above the neck. Since the doctor is moving quickly with the surgery, I want to make sure that we are addressing all of the issues. I would hate to go through surgery just to find out that it doesn’t address everything. ,The doctors didn’t have any hesitation when looking at my scans that the styloid/c1 issue needs to be addressed. I will ask the doctor as well when I talk to him. I just thought I’d ask to see if anyone has had this issue. Thanks so much!
Skull base pain, which sounds like what you’re describing, is a reasonably common ES symptom even w/o the IJV compression component. If you click on the magnifying glass search tool in the upper right of this page & type in skull base pain or pain at back of skull you’ll be able to see other discussions about this.
You are fortunate to have your surgery scheduled so quickly as many of our members have had to wait months, but at the same time, I understand how this could cause anxiety. I expect you’ll be very thankful to have your surgery behind you & healing started sooner than later. Do remember that surgery won’t give
you instant results. It can take several weeks to several months post op for symptoms to resolve noticeably & symptoms can come & go during the healing process. Nerves are slow to heal & often do so by a 3 steps forward 2 steps back process. There’s lots of information about what to expect after surgery on our forum. I’ve shared my healing timeline several times. This may be helpful for you:
POST OP RECOVERY.docx (13.2 KB)
I can understand feeling anxious and wanting to be sure that you’re getting the right treatment! Has your doctor done many of these surgeries? There’s lots of info about what to expect after surgery as well as the info @Isaiah_40_31 has given you; you can use the search function for that, and also in the Newbies Guide Section:
ES Information- Treatment: Surgery - Welcome / Newbies Guide to Eagle Syndrome - Living with Eagle
There’s suggestions in there about questions to ask your doctor too, although if you’re seeing one of the experienced ES doctors on our list probably most of the questions will have already been answered on here…
Hope you get on okay when you have your chat with him, & let us know when you have a date! 
Thanks again for the information. I will search it and see what comes up. I know that a lot of the questions I have right now have probably been discussed by others who’ve already gone through this. I appreciate all of the helpful info on this forum.
Thank you for your response. My surgery has been scheduled for 6/3 so I have just about a month to go. I wish that there would have been another option besides the surgery, but based on my scans, it does look as though I must have the surgery in order to try to take care of the IJV compression that is going on. The doctor I have seen is on the list & has done quite a lot of these surgeries. I think he said that they have done about 200 or so. I do have some specific questions for him when I have the pre-op meeting at the end of May, but I will definitely look over the suggestions on this forum. Thank you for answering questions!