I’ve been told I have an elongated styloid process with calcification of the ligament, by both an upper cervical chiropractor and dentist. Would someone tell me if I have marked up my xrays correctly? I can’t quite tell where the styloid or calcification ends. I want to share annotated images with my doctor so I can request a CT.
The yellow arrows are pointing at what I think is my styloid process (not quite sure I got it right), and the orange arrows are pointing at C1 and C2 which I think may be compressing my jugular vein, carotid artery and vagus nerve. I know that my C1 is tilted (higher on the right) and C2 is malrotated to the right. I have symptoms of both classical and vascular ES including dysphagia, poking pain on sides of neck, chronic neck pain, pulsatile tinnitus, and dizziness with flexion/extension/rotation. I have other degeneration going on in my neck including stenosis, so it’s hard to tell what is causing each symptom.
The panoramic x-ray where you’ve marked the styloids shows them really well, yes, your arrows are right…The first image shows how little a gap there is between the styloid process and C1…
Also if you can you could mark the hyoid bone process too, as being curved upwards like that isn’t common!
Thanks @Jules for your input. Is the hyoid bone process different to the hyoid bone? I compared my hyoid bone to other online images but I can’t quite tell the curving upwards in my images. I can tell it’s curving overall (but I can’t tell if it’s upwards) and the greater horns have pointy tips. Could you elaborate on which part isn’t common? TIA!
@Sunrise - I’ve annotated your hyoid bone so you can see what @Jules mentioned. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen greater horns with such an upward “curl” to them as yours have.
Thank you @Isaiah_40_31 . Now that you’ve annotated it, I do see the curl on the extension and flexion images! I think I was looking at the side view image in which the hyoid bone looks horizontal to my untrained eyes. Thanks so much for your help.
