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Hi everyone,

I underwent balloon angioplasty of my left jugular vein in July. I am still experiencing pain in the same area that the angioplasty was carried out. It's not constant but comes and goes and has done since July.

I am considering going back for a checkup next month, with the option of further angioplasty if there has been a restenosis. I am not sure if there is a problem with my vein healing though, or why there is still pain in my neck. I found the angioplasty extremely painful during the procedure and am wondering if something went wrong at that point. I don't want to risk a further angioplasty if there's a chance my vein hasn't yet healed.

I also have occasional sharp pain behind my left ear. Not sure if these pains are related.

Could anyone shed any light on this from their own experience? I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks!

Hi Cara,

I too have pain, but not in the neck area - upper chest - that is where I felt the ballooning - and mine comes and goes also - not constant. Am waiting for a call back to go for a follow-up doppler. My surgery was Sept. 2, 2010.

18 months out and I still have it. However, I have a giant stent that went through my foramen and banged up my spinal accessory nerve. It's possible that your IR nicked your SAN on the way through your foramen. IF you are really concerned, go get an EMG from a physiatrist and ask them to look for spinal accessory nerve damage.

cara28 wrote:Hi everyone,

I underwent balloon angioplasty of my left jugular vein in July. I am still experiencing pain in the same area that the angioplasty was carried out. It's not constant but comes and goes and has done since July.

I am considering going back for a checkup next month, with the option of further angioplasty if there has been a restenosis. I am not sure if there is a problem with my vein healing though, or why there is still pain in my neck. I found the angioplasty extremely painful during the procedure and am wondering if something went wrong at that point. I don't want to risk a further angioplasty if there's a chance my vein hasn't yet healed.

I also have occasional sharp pain behind my left ear. Not sure if these pains are related.

Could anyone shed any light on this from their own experience? I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks!

I got what I believe to be referral pain from my stent. It affected my ear and my jaw. Acupuncture really helped. I also found my angioplasty painful. It felt like ear infection pain with every ballooning. My stenosis was fairly high up.

Hi cara
thank you for asking this question because in all of my research I found nothing to indicate pain with out stents so I thought I was unusual. I had my procedure early in November and it is still very very tender but only on my right side. I opted for aggressive angio but no stents please.

My pain has slowly gotten better. Dr. Siskin believes it's from inflammations that occur due to the procedure.
One thing that really helped me was a did a three day course of steroids as part of my ms therapy. Steroids are a great anti-inflammatory!

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Much appreciated.

A couple of thoughts from doctors....

I emailed the clinic where I had the procedure done, and they thought that the pain was likely to be psychogenic since it is still occurring more than 4 weeks post-procedure. I'm not sure what to make of this....

Another suggestion was that the cause for the pain could not be discovered without an ultrasound, so off for an ultrasound I go!