Reaching out regarding symptoms and carotid artery questions

Hi @Benjie87,

Welcome! As both @birdie1 & @Andy89316 have said, your symptoms are those seen with ES. The blurry vision/eye focus issues/light sensitivity, dizziness, walking on a boat feeling, & head pressure can be symptoms of your IJV compression. Facial numbness, ear & jaw pain, odd feeling muscles around your eyes & forehead can be caused by the trigeminal & facial nerves Feeling like something is stuck in your throat is usually caused by the glossopharyngeal nerve but the vagus nerve can also play a role in that & in your gastroissues & palpitations. The spinal accessory nerve is what causes shoulder & trapezius pain. These nerves I mentioned are among the cranial nerves that can be irritated by ES.

Carotid irritation by the styloids can cause stroke-like symptoms. Stroke or TIA symptoms are typically facial numbness which is more likely being caused by nerve irritation. Here is a good article about TIA symptoms which are also symptoms experienced when a person has a stroke:

ICA compression should be visible on a CTV though it may not be noted since the radiologist reading the scan may only look at the veins not the arteries. You could ask to have your scan re-read by the radiologist & ask for the condition of the ICAs to be noted. In some cases having that type of scan done w/ the head in neutral position doesn’t show all compression because head position can impact how the styloids are contacting the vascular tissues. A dynamic CT scan w/ the head turned LR, up/down, etc) can better show compression of vascular tissues in the neck.

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