Wanting some info on an experienced ES Physician in or near Orlando, Florida!

Yes, he is an ENT in Cape Coral,Fl and maybe has an office in Fort Myers. He had/has Eagles syndrome. He did my first surgery. I was his second patient. Prior to that, he had Eagles and had a now retired colleague partially remove the syyloid and stylohyoid intraorally. He did the same for me. Although, he did an excellent job and all he had to work with was a 2D CT scan, I did not successfully heal. I am not sure what Dr Barrow is doing now. Last time I saw him, he still had Eagles on the other side and was not having the other side removed. I guess he was not having as much of a problem. I am not a normal case. I fell out of rental moving van in 2003. I was born with a congenital jaw deformity that was never appropriately handled and I have lost most of my chewing muscles from that, so my surgeries saved my eyesight if not my life, but I still have serious jaw pain and neck pain from that. I believe that I would be pain free now had I not had these things. I ultimately had bilateral surgeries done on both sides from a skull base surgeon after we got a 3 D image to see a big round lump in the remaining styloid.
Dr Barrow had only heard of Eagles in med school before he had it. I did not find this website until 4 days before my surgery with Dr Barrow in Feb 2013, and I did not know much about my jaw issues . I only had 2 choices an arrogant head and neck doctor that said Eagles was an easy operation, he had not done any, he would do mine and I was unremarkable. or Dr Barrow, who knew my pain and I am sure had done a bit of research prior to allowing his colleague operate. I chose Dr Barrow. I think he can do the intraoral technique, he is not a head and neck skull base surgeon and he does not want to dig around in the intracranial space. He was very excited about successfully pulling a short stubbed, “pencil” out about 2.8 cm. There were no surgical complications. I took 3 weeks to heal and 9 months to lose the feeling of a stick in my throat. I never got over the jaw pain though Bite guards help, but that is diminshing now. He will be honest with you, I think. He does not advertise anything and does not want to do surgery if it is not necessary.
I think there are surgeons at a University in Miami and a surgeon at Cleveland Clinic in Miami. Dr Alemar or Alevar was at Cleveland Clinic, not sure what patients are saying about him. Ask the moderators, I think they would know the lastest. Members had mixed reviews.

3 Likes

Thank you for posting this :slight_smile:

2 Likes

FYI to anyone who comes through, I just spent a bunch of hours on hold (Cant complain, I did the call me back thing, took 4 hours) to schedule at Dr Barrows office, I was told he doesnt look at and will not treat any eagles syndrome anymore. Not sure what happened there, but it was if i had mentioned Voldemort’s name lol.

2 Likes

@Oman - I assume you meant Dr. Lawton at Barrow Neuro Institute. He’s been hit and miss with our members & has turned away some whom I believe he could have helped with the most recent being @BlacknBlueSaint.

2 Likes

I was referencing dr barrow from @emma ‘s post above

2 Likes

Oops! Thank you for the correction. I should have looked further up the thread before making my comment. I’ll go put Dr. Lawton back on our list.

1 Like

I will look him up. One of his locations shows permanently closed. I will make some calls.

Oman, I do not think that I ever put Dr Barrow on the list. He was not experienced and knowing him, I do not think that he wanted to be listed. I will send you a link to him if I find he is still practicing. I will also send you the entire practice. Perhaps one of the other doctors are equipped, but none of them are skull base doctors so the most any of them would do would be intraoral surgery. That is okay if your Eagles is not advanced. Definitely get a 3D CT scan before going to an intra oral surgeon. They can remove the middle part of the styloid leaving a stub at the top and whatever is left of the stylohyoid ligament on the bottom. If you have a severely ossified stylohyoid ligament down to the hyoid bone or a very thick or odd looking styloid at the skull base, intra oral surgery is probably not the best option. When I did my first surgery in 2013, almost no one did 3D imaging. Now, it is the best option to see the entire picture. I do not think that my styloid or stylohyoid ligament got worse after my intra oral surgery. I just never got a lot better, so I am pretty sure that he did the best thing possible at the time, and this website was just getting popular. Five years later, when I did external surgeries, Eagles was becoming more well known mostly because of 3D imaging. I just left a call back number with the group Dr Barrow is supposed to be working. I will let you know when they call back.

4 Likes

Dr alemar was not the best. Poor bedside manner and said there was no way my son had eagles or glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Dr hackman confirmed my son has eagles and possibly GPN as well. Dr alemar said he didnt have GPN because it didnt show in the scan. Yet dr hackman confirmed u cannot always see in a scan and cant rely on that. I would stay away from him. Hackman and cognetti are the 2 that have been helpful and knowledgeable on my sons case.

3 Likes