After years of going to many doctors, ent Drs, dentists, oral surgeons etc I saw a new ent Dr today that was able to look at my ct scan last year and see my styloid process and seemed familiar with Eagle Syndrome. He showed me that my left styloid was elongated but he didn’t think it was elongated enough to cause all the symptoms because he was unable to palpate it in the left tonsil bed. I have felt like I have strep throat on the left side of my throat, tinnitus, teeth pain, and pain all the way up that side of my nose behind my eye and into my forehead for years now. Does anyone know if the styloid has to be able to be felt to be considered “elongated enough”? Also a prior ent told me I had calcification going up to my hyoid bone but he didn’t look for that, he only looked at the styloid. He told me it was some time of neuralgia and to take alleve and a muscle relaxer for the neck pain. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I am desperate to stop this pain.
The styloid does NOT have to be felt to cause symptoms. It depends on the angle it’s growing. I know mine was growing back at a weird angle and I had all kinds of symptoms, but it couldn’t be felt in my throat.
Most of the times they can feel it, but not always. That’s the problem with eagles in that it presents so differently in so many of us. Maybe you can tell the doctor that there are people on the forum who had styloids that showed up on a scan, but couldn’t be felt, and were still cured by surgery. I hope he can listen to that.
Thank you so much for responding! I have had so much pain for so long with this I’m ready to give up. I am going to go see a different ENT in Dallas that I found on the forum that deals with Eagles. I had one ENT tell me I had calcification in the ligament. Seems like it’s hard to find anyone to help us. He was just adamant that if he couldn’t feel it then it was not considered Eagles even though he admitted the styloid on that side was elongated.
That’s actually very common for doctors to think that. And in all fairness, most times they can feel the styloids. But that seems incredibly stubborn to insist you don’t have eagles when he knows your styloid is elongated. Some doctors (like in any profession) want to go by hard and fast rules and can’t consider that there can be exceptions. But geez, the human body is so incredibly complex and they can’t possibly know everything about a rare condition.
And yes, it’s often very hard to find doctors to help us. A lot of us have had to see a number of doctors and also travel very far to get help. It can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you’re in pain. I hope the doctor in Dallas can help.
Thank you. Have you heard of anyone on this site that has used Dr Chan in Dallas?
He’s on the list, so he was mentioned by someone at some time and most likely did a surgery on a member in the past. But I did a search for him in the discussions and didn’t find anything, so I don’t know.
Okay thank you again
I should qualify my last post. I did a search for Dr. Chan and found a mention of him, but nothing about him doing a surgery.