Hi All, I am almost 2 weeks post-op and recovery from the operation is going fine but did not notice much improvement from my symptoms such as severe hearing loss bilaterally and ear pressure (constantly popping ears as if I was in an airplane), tinnitus, after images, halos around lights, mild visual snow, facial and head pressure, facial and jaw pain (feel as though my cheeks are being pulled down, mostly towards the end of the day), Insomnia has not drastically improved either (still waking up a lot in the night, not going back to it quick enough - AVG sleep 5 - 6 hours). I also lately notice that I move a lot in my sleep. I wonder if some of my symptoms are caused by occult CSF leak as I have a lot of perineural cysts on my cervical and thoracic spine on top of the normal IIH ones though I do not have orthostatic headache. I was hopping to see some of these go but time will tell. I also can’t comment on the second surgery until the CTV is done in 2 months or so.
I think some of you might be wondering why I chose Dr. Timothy. Well in addition to seeing PatientD’s experience with him and the minimal invasiveness (2.5 CM incisions) of his surgery, I did see some promising images of jugular decompression he did in his website along with a video that attracted me to his method. So the combination of PatientD’s experience with him and the surgery Videos and Image did convince to go with him.
Here is an image of pre & post jugular vein decompression. You can see with Styloid present, the IJV looks decompressed entirely (no need to remove the styloid). Of course this patient had additional fusion surgery as well.
This image can be found at his site (Jake Timothy | Pictures). It is the 3rd image in the pictures tab.
There is also a surgery video which has attracted me since it shows that he, not only, removes the bone but also does remove fascia in the video. Although he does not remove digastric muscle or move nerves or artery as Dr. Constantino & Dr. Lo & Tobias do.
This video is the 2nd video on videos tab at (Jake Timothy | Videos). You can watch the surgery and at the end it appears that he decompressed the jugular vein in its entirety.
Although Dr. Timothy is good doctor who is really careful and patient safety is his first priority, I think now that I have seen what Dr. Lo and Dr. Tobias do to decompress the jugular vein, I am thinking I would have been a good candidate. The reason is I have digastric muscle and occipital artery compressing my jugular vein on top of the C1. It is clear now that IJV compression is complex and is not only the result of C1 & Styloid only. Perhaps, why many of us do not improve after surgery is because of these other tissue compressions (accessory nerve, Occipital artery, digastric muscle & fascia).
Here is my 3D left IJV. Digastric muscle (blue arrow) is compressing Occipital artery (cyan arrow) on IJV. Green arrow points to C1.
Here is another one that shows the Occipital artery (cyan arrow) clearly.
Will continue to update as things progress but praying for a miracle in terms of symptom relief.