Hi Kelley, I just ran across your post as I'm having similar symptoms myself ... I've always been somewhat sore and tender on the opposite side of my neck from where my surgery was. Sometimes it flairs up, I go see someone, and they always come back and say everything looks and feels good.

One ENT said a lot of the soreness is because my head is "unbalanced" because I have muscles on one side and lack some on the other.

But this week, the pain has seemed more acute than usual. Monday night, even had shooting pain from my neck into my ear that made me wince everytime I had an "episode"... Went to my general doc this week and he said he felt a swollen lymph node, which of course has me completely freaked out. But he said the fact that it is tender to the touch is a sign that it's likely from the lymph node doing its job catching an infection and not something malignant.

But, I'm going to see an ENT today anyways... sorry to hijack the thread but was glad to see this on here... I'm 3+ years out from initial diagnosis and 2+ years from final treatment, so this has kind of jarred me back into some old feelings/emotions/fears again...