Hi there,
I am not a qualified radiologist, merely an interested party, with self-taught knowledge acquired from visiting many, many radiological sites and reviewing many injury types. I just want to ask, did you bang your head in the accident ? Was your head sort of ‘hung’ forwards after your accident, as your first x-ray looks as if your head is in flexion somewhat ?
Looking at the x-rays taken from the side, I think that your ‘prevertebral tissue’ (the tissue in front of your neck bones – at the back of your throat) is a little swollen around the craniocervical junction on the earlier x-ray, which is a sign of injury. I’m not too sure whether the distance between the underside of your condyles (part of the head that sits on the neck) and your atlas (top bone in your neck, that your head sits on) exceeds the permitted amount. It’s very difficult to see in such a small picture but it’s possible.
C3 also looks ‘suspect’ as it’s still out of line with the ‘spinolaminar line’ (a line that follows the flow of the bones at the back) even in the latest picture.
It’s difficult to see but your spinous processes (the bones that stick out at the back of your neck) look slightly misaligned in your latest back to front type x-ray, I think it’s between C5-C6. Mine look the same but still seem to pass the inspection.
Many Craniocervical injuries go undiagnosed, I know this, I have spoken to so many people who are surviving (so to speak) with this injury. In the old days craniocervical instability was rare and was thought to be a fatal injury but now, due to the type of sports and motor vehicle accidents, it’s a more common occurrence and people do survive it. I’ll tell you now that there are MANY methodologies to try and capture this injury but NONE capture every form of the injury. I applied all of these methodologies (that I could track down) and I passed most of them with flying colours, there were only a couple of methods that gave me a result that made me suspicious that my head was ‘loose’. I then found the methodology created by Dr Bolognese & Co (including Dr Francomano) – it’s available here on Prettyill.com to download.
After I spent some time learning this methodology and applied it to my radiology, it seemed pretty likely that my problem was Craniocervical instability. I then remortgaged my house and went to The Chiari Institute in New York, where they confirmed it and recommended immediate fixation surgery, which I’ve been unable to get back home in the UK. Professor Rodney Grahame, our UK EDS expert did say that we, with EDS, are more vulnerable to this sort of injury.
Regards
Barbara
(UK)
Head & Neck Injury (June 2002); Mild Concussion; Post Concussion Syndrome; Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS); Peripheral Vestibular Dysfunction; Mild Radiculopathy & Small Fibre Neuropathy (right leg & foot resp.); Partially Empty Sella (Oct 2002) Fully Blown Empty Sella (Oct 2004); Whiplash Associated Disorder (WAD); Cerebellar Ectopia (Chiari 0); Cranio-cervical Instability (CCI) with Posterior Gliding (PG) & Cranial Settling (CS); Brain Compression; Retroflexed Odontoid; Stretched/Elongated Brainstem; Vitamin D deficiency; Ehlers Danlos (EDS) type 111; and now Osteoarthritis! and oh, I forgot Arrhythmias – confirmed as runs of Bigeminy and Trigeminy.