Hi @MisterFrodo - Thank you for sharing your story in such detail. I’m very sorry for all you’ve been through but am glad you kept looking for answers until you got some that make sense & align with the symptoms you have. Dr. Hackman is very experienced with ES & should be very helpful for you. I’m glad you’re having a consult with him.
Many people have a dominant & non-dominant IJV. I suspect in your case, your right IJV is dominant & your left is non-dominant. Your left IJV has a bit of a steep downward turn back toward your the transverse process of your C1 which is probably the cause of the IJV compression on your left side. The head position in the imgaging does make it appear you have a good amount of space between your right styloid & C1, however, since you have CCI, it’s possible your extra neck mobility closes that gap w/ head movement causing the right IJV to also become compressed.
I also notice that your cervical spine is exceedingly straight. The cervical spine is supposed to have a lordotic curve which forms when you’re a baby doing “tummy time” & holding your head up & back. As adults, we can lose that curve by spending a lot of time looking down at cell phones, computer screens, books, etc. A very straight neck brings the styloids closer to nerves & vascular tissues in the neck. There are exercises that you can do to help restore the natural curve, but it’s a slow process & requires diligence. @JugularEagle has posted a link to a video by Kjetil Larsen that might be helpful for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FLe3_jmt3I
@vdm also posted quite a bit about this problem among others:
I’ve annotated a couple of your images but am not sure my comments tell you anything you don’t already know.
