Hi Lori,
I also had an interesting experience with Dr Philippsen (Muncie, IN). I was told he will assess Eagle’s patients case by case to determine if he’ll treat them and they were almost not going to keep my appointment but I was told he’d see me as I was “already on the books”. I got the impression he’s trying to withdraw from this kind of surgery.
I did have my appointment face to face with him. He told me he only does this surgery through the mouth. I had already decided I wanted to go through the neck as more could be removed. I got the impression he only removed what he could (which I believe is not enough).
He told me he would refer me to one of his colleagues in Tennessee who goes through the neck but I never heard from that doctor and Dr Philippsen could not remember the doctor’s name.
I ended up traveling from IN to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to have my left side operated on through the neck by Dr Jason Newman at Penn Medicine two weeks ago. I’m so glad I went to him. He is a highly skilled skull based surgeon who is very familiar with difficult surgeries. Dr Newman left it up to me to decide whether I wanted to go through the neck or mouth but said if it was him having the surgery done he’d have it done through the neck (that helped me make my final decision).
Dr Newman removed my calcified ligament as close to the skull base as possible and removed 5 centimeters (2 inches) of ligament and smoothed the remaining part near my skull.
I know not everyone can travel for surgery but it is in such a delicate area of the body I wanted to go with someone I felt more comfortable with. At the time of my surgery he said he’d done about 75 Eagle surgeries which might not sound like a huge amount but he usually works in the cancer center so the bulk of his surgeries addresses other conditions.
All the best with whatever you decide to do.
Bec