What length of time where you told it would take to heal?

General
1

What length of time where you told it would take to heal? The anesthesiologist made it sound like he thought it would be like cutting my finger or something. He did not say it like that per say, but that is what I took away from what he said. He said that the pain would not be that bad and I would be back to normal in no time. I will wait to hear what the Surgeon says as I don’t think that guy really had a clue about this procedure. I believe all your testimonies before I believe someone who has never had the procedure done.

The anesthesiologist first said he has heard of a "styloidectomy", but never of ES. I asked him if he looked it up so he would then be familiar with it for the future. He said he would. After answering all the normal questions, they ask for pre op, I said I had a few of my own.

I explained about my sensitivity to codeine and morphine and asked if there was anything else that I could take that would not give me a gut ache and vomiting. He mentioned a few that I might try, I just don’t want to puke after surgery on my neck that will be so painful.

RB

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HI RB,

I have an issue with morphine too. Dilaudid works for me and is actually a bit stronger. It also works better for break through pain. I request that with every surgery when staying over. Percocet/oxycodone works for me when at home.

My doctor told me it would take 3-4 weeks to recover. He said with ES and the patient recovery results for ES is a toss of the coin. He said some have minimum pain and have view issues. Then the other side has extreme pain for 3-4 weeks before you turn the corner. I got the extreme pain side of the coin. He said it will take 3-9 months to see real long term improvement. He said my long term diagnosis was very good.

I had a lot of inflammation. A lot is gone now but I still have some. ICE, ICE, ICE!!! Sleep as much as you can the first week or two. I hope you get the opposite side of the coin than the one I got. Take care and keep me posted on the journey.

Bless you and yours

3

Thank you BigBugs,

I may have exagerated in my explanation of what the anesthisiologist said a bit but he did not make it sound like it would be that bad. I am not going to look for any major pain relief before 3 weeks so I don't get my hopes up too high. That way if it is any less than that I will be pleasantly surprised. I bought ice gel packs to rotate, and plan on soft foods for the first week even though I am having the external approach. I want to take lots of Vit. C and Ibuprophen. I will keep you posted.

RB

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Hi RB,

Everything that bigsbug said about recovery I agree with. It was about 3 weeks for me. I went back to work after 2 weeks and it was a bit rough. Its been 4 months since my surgery and I feel pretty well healed as far as ES goes. Ice does help a lot. Please consult your doctor before taking ibuprofen after surgery because its a blood thinner. Congrats on your surgery and Good luck!

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RB,

My Doctor said for me to take ibuprofen for the inflammation as long as it does not bother my stomach. I take a lot of C as well. I will keep you in my prayers and I hope you are pleasantly surprised.

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I second the motion on Dilaudid. I got sick on the weakest of narcotics ......hydrocodine / Vic. Dilaudid is heavy duty pain med, without the nausea. Good stuff :o)

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Hi, Maybe this can help. April 4th surgery at cleveland clinic. Styloidectomy (external) of 2.5 cm. Very little improvement, but some first 2 1/2 weeks. Then ear pain I had for 9 months completely dissappeared. Overall nerve pain around surgical area very uncomfortable for 3 1/2 months. Tried everything to make it easier, but the massaging and exercise I started at week 3 did not help, but kept doing it, and I believe it made it worse. I tried Triliptal from Neurologist, but side efeects too much as I went up in dose. If you get desperate for the discomfort after surgery, check into Neurotin pills.

If U remember anything, the nerves in the neck just need to settle down and heal, left alone. I learned this the hard way. So it was mid July and I started to feel great. One thing that really helped was over the counter Neuragen creme, $20 tube at walgreens. Applied about every 3 hours. It saved me.

Overall, the surgery recovery was very difficult, uncomforatble for me. The surgeon fixed me, but was of no help with the recovery process. Thank god its over for me at this point. Good luck, hope this helps.

TJB

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I was told 6 months total for bone and nerve healing. I saw significant healing by month 3 and even a little more at 4 1/2 months.

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I agree with the recommendations for Dilaudid- great pain medicine. I may have had a slight allergy to it, because my eyes and nose swelled up but no one was concerned. I asked for a Benadryl to help with that, and it did. The Dilaudid was like magic for the pain.

No one made any guesses on how long the recoveries would take. For me, the recovery from the surgery was *much* easier, and I think that was probably because I didn't try to overdo it right after surgery. The second surgery I didn't take as seriously because I'd recovered so easily before. I walked all over Philadelphia the day after the surgery, and I think that's why my recovery was so slow and rough that time. Take it easy!

Anyway, it's been 4 1/2 months and I never get a hint of eagle syndrome symptoms. I can't remember when I fully recovered from the second surgery, but I think it was at least 6 weeks...

Good luck, RB!

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hey there, I just got finished with my "fangs", surgery was done at the Thomas Jefferson hospital in philly. dr david cognetti, (great guy and great crew working with him)

surgery #1 was the right side, may 31 2013, approx. 6.8 cm, I was out for 2.5 hours, post op, hardly any pain, and symptoms were better as soon as I woke up.

surgery #2 left side, july 8, approx. 6.3 cm. out for 2 hours, big difference in pain, that side was terrible, spent about 5 hours + in recovery before they got things to settle down enough to let me leave,

I also have issues with codeine products and morphine, the stuff they gave in the IV worked pretty good, but there were no pills that would touch it post op. just had to keep the ice packs going and tough it out for a while.

both sides had the incision healed up within 3 days, ( not sure how that worked out but it was great that it did )

also went with extra vitamin C, made sure to drink lots of cran to help flush out the kidneys, chocolate pudding, strawberry jello and apple sauce.

right now it has been just a little over one month since the second surgery, two months from the first, things are feeling great.

before I had pounding pulsing headache because the styloids had the juggler pinched off keeping the return flow from leaving my head properly, face, ear, eye, neck pain. spit gland under the right jaw was swelled up, jabbing in the neck when I coughed or yawned. coughing and gagging because the right styloid was connecting to the hyoid bone in the throat, lots of other things too.

post op, almost all of the bad stuff is better, blood pressure down a lot.

numbness in and around the incision on the left side but that will go away, right side already did.

some problem with ingrown hairs in the scar, just have to keep picking them and pulling them out

this Tuesday was my first day back to work, there are still some minor things hanging on and an occasional twitch from the incision but mostly all is good.

highly recommend dr cognetti and his team, they have helped lots of others on here, he listens and cares, that helped a lot because I had already been chasing the symptoms for about 12 years or so, then another year and a half after we found it, three other doctors locally just gave me the run around and kept racking up the office visits.

reading all the posts on this and other sites, it seems results vary from days to months. some have better luck with it than others, everyone reacts different. but you will never know until you give it a try.

with my results, I am glad I got it done and I am done with the stupid things......

not sure how comfortable I would be with the doc's and team not fully understanding what is going on, that was a big plus with the team that worked on me, they have done several and are very confident in what they are doing. cuts the pre op anxiety way down

good luck with what ever path you take.

1 Like
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I was told a couple weeks but I was out about a month each time I had them done....

12

He said the same for me! It's a toss of a coin because we all respond differently. And I think ES is like a car loan... You never get the same experience with every car loan... everyone is different, things come up, people respond or hurt differently....

BigsBug said:

HI RB,

I have an issue with morphine too. Dilaudid works for me and is actually a bit stronger. It also works better for break through pain. I request that with every surgery when staying over. Percocet/oxycodone works for me when at home.

My doctor told me it would take 3-4 weeks to recover. He said with ES and the patient recovery results for ES is a toss of the coin. He said some have minimum pain and have view issues. Then the other side has extreme pain for 3-4 weeks before you turn the corner. I got the extreme pain side of the coin. He said it will take 3-9 months to see real long term improvement. He said my long term diagnosis was very good.

I had a lot of inflammation. A lot is gone now but I still have some. ICE, ICE, ICE!!! Sleep as much as you can the first week or two. I hope you get the opposite side of the coin than the one I got. Take care and keep me posted on the journey.

Bless you and yours

13

My daughter had this surgery 1-1/2 weeks ago. She has problems with codeine, so they put her on dilaudid. Unfortunately, that caused problems for her also. We switched to Percocet & Zophran (Zophran helps with any stomach issues caused by Percocet). Pain still very severe. Doc told us to expect 2 weeks of pain "hell" and then it would begin to subside. Said to expect some sort of pain for up to 8 weeks. First week was really bad, now starting to see some improvement. Be sure to take the pain meds right on schedule for the first week. She ices her neck and said that helps her, in addition to the pain meds. Hang in there!

14

I've had two external surgeries. My first one at the Cleveland Clinic was a very difficult recovery with a lot of nerve pain and it took about 3 months to be able to go back to work. My second with Dr. Samji was a much easier recovery. I had pain at the surgery site, but not the nerve pain I had before. I was able to go back to work in two weeks.

15

When I posted on here at 2 1/2 weeks post op, everyone said wait at least 3 weeks. I don't remember exactly when I felt better, but it wasn't too long after that. It's been 3 months now and I have occasional pain at the scar, but my c-section scar is 10 years old and I still get pain there if I stand too long or walk too much, so it's not surprising. Otherwise, I feel great.

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Hi RB
I had my surgery at the end of January. The pain from incision only lasted a couple of days. What took longer was for my blood flow to re-adjust since the jugular vein was pinched by the styloid.
Also my neck muscle were messed up do to years of compensating for the styloid poking into my jugular. My suggestion is to start walking as soon as you feel like it. To get the blood flowing in the right direction also to help with posture.
I had a CT venogram post-op to check for damage to my styloid. i had a venoplasty to balloon out the jugular. after that I felt a lot better.
Best of luck on 8/15.

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Thank you to everyone for all the replies. It has been very informative and I am sure helpful to many other people who are going to have surgery too. I go in 3 days and am not afraid, I just dont want to be in pain that there is no medication for. I just want to be on the other side of the surgery and hopefully my symptoms will be better and resolved over time.

RB

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4 weeks or so. Everyone's recovery is different.

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my first 3 specialists said all of these problems could not be caused by the styloid. I also had the juggler pinched off, about 50 % on the right and 75 % on the left, when I turned my head back and right, it would shut it down more and I would almost black out if I didn't straighten my head up, ( I did go down a few times before I knew what was causing it)

since the surgeries, the blood flow is much better, I am noticing that if I stand up too fast, I get light headed. I am guessing that the system needs time to adjust to actually having good flow.

it has been great reading the posts here, not glad you all are having problems because you are in our elite club, but glad to hear similar stories, re assuring to finally know that the other doctors were wrong and I am not making all this stuff up.

KEEP THE FAITH, AND FIGHT A GOOD FIGHT.

if the doc's are not listening or telling you that you are crazy and making stuff, keep pushing until they finally do get it taken care of



Ruth said:

Hi RB
I had my surgery at the end of January. The pain from incision only lasted a couple of days. What took longer was for my blood flow to re-adjust since the jugular vein was pinched by the styloid.
Also my neck muscle were messed up do to years of compensating for the styloid poking into my jugular. My suggestion is to start walking as soon as you feel like it. To get the blood flowing in the right direction also to help with posture.
I had a CT venogram post-op to check for damage to my styloid. i had a venoplasty to balloon out the jugular. after that I felt a lot better.
Best of luck on 8/15.
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Ive had both sides done. It took about 2 weeks to heal where I could eat. It took months for my throat to feel normal again. Avoid any strenuous activity like singing in the car. They gave me liquid Demerol and liquid Loratab. I feel like ive never had any surgery done now.