Hello everyone!
My name is Nikita, I’m 27, I live in Germany and I started having issues very similar to Eagle syndrome since November 20, 2024.
Here is my story:
My symptoms started on Nov, 15 from strange pressure feeling under my jaw, which I thought as lymph-nodes inflammation.
One week later I have found some swallowing and breathing difficulties, but they were minor.
Then I had a accident when I choked very badly on a tart persimmon that got stuck in my throat and wouldn’t go down. I tried to inhale several times but my throat was blocked, the only thing that helped was leaning down and then I was able to inhale through my nose.
Since the accident it was really hard for me swallow food and especially saliva.
My first really uncomfortable symptom(except swallowing issues) was pressure in the throat, like someone pressing in the area of left and/or right stylohyoid muscles.
From January, 10th I started having weird clicking sound on the right side under my jaw. It hurts after clicking sounds. When I touch the place where the clicking occurs, I feel a hard lump that hurts when palpated for a long time. The place corresponds to projection of stylohyoid muscle and shape of the lump matches shape of stylohyoid muscle.
A few days later the right side of my face and neck was swollen when I woke up - my TMJ, temple, ear, and right side under my jaw hurt.
I could barely open my mouth as it was too hurt in my TMJ.
However, by the end of January mouth opening and TMJ stopped bothering me, but my swallowing difficulties and clicking become worse.
I clearly felt that while swallowing, something on the right side of my throat seemed to be preventing saliva/water from passing through normally.
Sometimes when I swallow saliva it seems to get stuck and press in my throat and this pressing feeling slowly goes down until the saliva reaches my chest(esophagus).
Weird dizziness feeling coming and going sometimes.
From the middle of February I noticed that it’s hard for me to take a normal/big sip of water - my throat seems so tiny when I’m drinking, and I have to make a lot of effort to take a full sip(this feeling gets worse with time).
Periodically I have severe headaches in the temple, ear and back of the head. And also pain in the area on the right under the jaw.
Very often during the day I feel pressure / pain under right jaw, like smth slightly chocking my throat.
I have seen dozens of family doctors, ENTs, and have heard the same answer - “that’s ok, probably some minor viral infection”.
Recently I have done neck CT which showed calcified stylohyoid ligament and nothing else:
On this week I visited another ENT who checked my CT images and concluded that this can be Eagle syndrome and he can cut my stylohyoid ligament. He said he’s done 20-30 such operations per year, but the chances that it will help 50/50.
Has anyone heard of such an operation where the stylohyoid ligament is only cut and not completely removed? Won’t the remains of the ligament with calcifications cause problems/chronic inflammation in the future?
The ENT says that such an operation has minimal risks and has helped restore swallowing in some patients.
I’m feeling so lost I have no idea what is this lump(I’m 99% sure that it’s root cause) that I feel on the right side, is it the calcified ligament, stylohyoid muscle, or can it be calcification of stylohyoid muscle? and my symptoms just keep getting worse…
The more I analyze it the more I think that this lump couldn’t be stylohyoid ligament as the ligament is hidden behind stylohyoid and digastric muscles, and normally I shouldn’t be able to touch it… But I don’t know…
I feel like this problem is too complex and no one wants to try to solve it / able to solve it. I have almost lost hope…
I can’t agree on the operation w/o knowing if the ligament is root cause of my issue and if it’s gonna help by cutting it. I don’t understand how ENT can suggest operation w/o figuring out root cause.
I would really appreciate if you could tell me what this lump on the right under the jaw could be and if you have heard of similar operations on the stylohyoid ligament.