Hi @trl1964 -
The nerves potentially involved in your nasopharynx, ear, & throat are most likely the vagus, glossopharyngeal & trigeminal nerves. All three innervate the nasopharynx area. Trigeminal can additionally cause ear, tooth, & facial pain/pressure. Glossopharyngeal & vagus are usually the cause of throat pain & dysphagia. The vagus nerve also is in charge of the vocal cords & hoarseness is a somewhat common ES symptoms. The head pressure & lightheadedness you have could be the result of the inflammation occurring in your nasopharynx. We’ve had a number of members w/ terrible symptoms of sinusitis but w/o infection. This sounds a little like what you’re experiencing. The vagus nerve is also involved in lung function/breathing. I had some breathing challenges when exercising prior to my right styloidectomy. These subsided once that styloid was gone. Insomnia is a common ES symptoms whether because of pain, pressure, or breathing difficulty as you’re experiencing. I feel confident in saying that having your styloids removed will likely reduce or remove most if not all the symptoms you’ve mentioned.
The cranial nerves (not in numerical order) that can be affected by ES are the facial, trigeminal, glossopharyngeal, hypoglossal, vagus, spinal accessory & possibly the vestibulocochlear. There is a fantastic series of YouTube videos called Two Minute Neuroscience with one video for each of the cranial nerves. I highly recommend you watch those that cover these nerves. To get you started:
You can also use the search tool to search ES Information. This will bring up a series of posts written by @Jules which are quite comprehensive & there are a couple that deal specifically with symptoms. She backs up her information w/ research articles.
I’m not sure if there’s a research paper that notes your specific group of symptoms as being related to ES because there are so many variations on the ES symptoms theme, however, there are likely papers that mention at least some of your symptoms. I’ll try to make time in the next few days to look through our research paper titles to see if I can find a couple that might be helpful for you.