Be careful, you can have both. I did. Had a c6-c7 surgery and the Eagles got worse than ever. EAgles does not show up on a MRI or MRA. Neurosurgeons have never heard of it. It is so close to the spine but they do not see it, or think about it ever. So do not be surprised if the fusions do not do the trick. Before you have fusions or nerve burning, I recommend that you go to a good pain management doctor and have him/her test your cervical discs for pain from the discs. They can test by injecting marcane, like novocaine where the MRI shows the spurs or disc problem. If the marcane gives you improvement then go for treating the discs, but if you feel nothing imrpoved with the tests, then I would see a neurologist for nerve conduction and EMG to see if there is a correlation to spine and pain. If not then I would continue to look at Eagles. I did not follow that regimen. I did have the pain management doc tell me my pain was not C7. I did not heed his warning. I feel like my fusion was really unnecessary at the time, though I don't have a crunching in my disc, but that surgery made my Eagles situation worse.
If you have had a CT scan that shows elongated calcified styloids, you very well can have shoulder and neck and back pain. I could not turn my neck, lift a book, type on the computer or even chop vegetables last summer, after my fusion in March of last year. My torso and arms were practically locked in a position that felt like my arms needed to be right at my side and my neck and torso could not move nor could I lift my arms without terrible shoulder blade and back pain. I was in bed on ice about 18 hours out of the day. I hurt like I just wanted out of this life. Finally after removing my styloid to the base of the skull and the stylohyoid to the hyoid bone, in September, I had immediate movement of my neck and arms I worked in my garden 2 weeks after Eagles surgery with no arm shoulder or shoulder blade pain. It took about 2 months or maybe 3 before I could lie down flat,but I could immediately roll over in bed for the first time in years.
I did have a spur in my c7 nerve root and I can lift my head up and look at the ceiling with no pain after the fusion, but it did nothing for the ear, neck, shoulder, back or feeling of something stuck in my throat and sometimes first bite syndrome.
Remember this, your trapezius muscle starts at the base of your skull. It spreads out across your back in a wide V shape. The sternocleidomastoid muscles are in your neck and attach to your shoulder. Those muscles can be affected by the styloids or the accessory nerves which are pinched by the styloids. My pain was always described as muscular, but therapists could not release those muscles. Whatever the cause, the pain in my back got way worse and burning. I could not lay my head down because of the intense pain in my skull. It was then that I realized for sure that I absolutely had to have the styloids removed and removed soon. Regardless of which surgery you do, you may need both, but doctors do not know the amount of pain Eagles can cause. I am now 4 weeks out of surgery to remove the opposite side. Styloid free now, and I can move much more freely. I cannot tell you everything that is better because some things get better from the steroids in surgery and start to hurt in a few months. So, I do know that a lot of things seem much better and I will be able to quantify it all in a few months.
I hope you do not take any action that will be permanent with your neck until you do full testing of the cervical areas where they believe from the MRI are the problem. You cannot undo the nerve ablations or the fusions. Make sure what they see on the MRI are indeed actually causing pain. Many times cervical spine can look awful but not be causing pain. Hope this helps others not get the wrong surgery or make you worse. These two things have similar symptoms, so be careful.