Question for my fellow eagles! I flew for the first time since having both styloids removed yesterday. I noticed that my typical pressure headache from takeoff and landing was absent.
For me, I used to feel like my head was being squeezed relentlessly from takeoff to about an hour into the flight, and descent until 4-5 hours later.
Does/did anyone else experience this?
That’s brilliant! Must be a relief for you 
I’ve only flown twice since surgery & I did get the headaches & pressure feelings again, lasted just a couple of days afterwards, I’m not complaining!
This is out of my experience range but I’m sure glad you had no pressure headaches with your recent flight, anharris!! 
Jules,
I’m sorry you still get those headaches when you fly, but agree that since other symptoms are totally gone, it’s a small price to pay! 
No flying since Covid started anyway, so I don’t need to worry!
This is encouraging, thanks for sharing. I haven’t flown in almost two years (weird to think about how long it’s been!) but it definitely was a trigger for me. Very high altitude (over 10k feet) also seemed to trigger me. Hopefully not now that I had my surgery!
Hey AnHarris,
I have some terrible pressure headaches. I found that on the long haul flights ie Australia to Doha/Doha to London the headache was mild, but whilst in the UK, my wife and I went from London to Amsterdam, BANG, awful headache. We took a train from Amsterdam to Paris and all was fine. We then flew back to the UK, another short flight and I was in agony. A week later and we returned to Australia, another long haul and all was fine (just exhausted).
For me, with the long haul flights, I believe my body and brain had time to adjust to the pressure changes, where as the shorter flights my body didn’t have time to normalise to the initial change before we were back on the ground. So I had a high pressure headache PLUS a low pressure headache all at the same time and my system went into error mode and knocked me off my feet. NASTY.
Merl from the Modsupport Team
I don’t get significantly worsened headaches when I fly, but tend to get nauseated, especially on descent. And if there’s turbulance. Then my heart gets really uncomfortable and I feel sicker.
Interested if my motion sickness, in general, might improve after surgery. That would be so cool.
There is a possibility that your motion sickness could become less after ES surgery. I hope that’s the case for you. It does seem like the sickness you get is more air pressure related than movement related based on what you said about your symptoms increasing during descent. On the other hand, the turbulence issue seems more like a motion problem, but perhaps the quick little changes in pressure during turbulence are problematic for you.
Your surgery is scheduled for late spring/early summer as I recall. Is that correct?
Jan 5th…assuming I stick with it. The decision has not been a straight path for me!
Glad it’s sooner than I remembered. I hope you stick w/ the date especially since it’s tough to get scheduled w/ Dr. Hepworth. I think having your styloid removed will be really helpful for you. 
I’ll make sure your date is on my calendar so I can be praying for you.
Thanks so much. I’m leaving it to fate a bit…I’m going to Wisconsin for the holidays (missed last year, so it feels kind of necessary) and some of my close family are unvaccinated and will not test for Covid for me, even though I explained about the surgery and needing to test negative for it. I’m boosted, so figure if I get Covid I’m unlikely to get very ill, but would have to cancel or delay this surgery if I tested positive.
On the bright side, I have recently discovered I could use 1-3 other surgeries (SMA syndrome, possible pelvic prolapse, and people keep trying to take my gall bladder out…), and maybe I should do those first, anyway! 
I will roll the dice by getting on that plane tomorrow!
Happy holidays, everyone!
Hope that you have a lovely time & stay well 
I second Jules’ sentiments. Safe & healthy travels to you. I’ll say a prayer to that end. I hope you have a wonderful time w/ your family vaccinated or unvaxed. You have a lot on your plate health-wise. We’re here for you! Please let us know how things go for you.
Happy Holidays back to you.
So much kindness! Thank you all!
I hope you had safe and healthy travels. Mom and I both managed to catch something that we assume is a simple cold because the only people we were unmasked around were fully vaccinated, but results are pending. I’m glad to be back home where I can rest on my wedge pillow
I’ll be praying that you’re able to get the procedures you need and that you test negative when the time comes.
That’s interesting. Mine seemed to get worse as I aged (from my first flight at 13 to the one at 24 before my last styloid was out) and length didn’t seem to factor in - except that on longer flights the pressure would ease as my body adjusted to the altitude and then return on descent.