Hyoid Bone

Your hyoid bone is a tiny bone at the front of your neck. It’s shaped like a crescent or the letter U. This bone sits below your lower jaw and above your thoracic cartilage, protective tissue that covers your vocal cords. You can feel your hyoid bone if you swallow while holding your fingers where your chin and neck meet.

Unlike most bones, your hyoid bone doesn’t have a direct connection to any other bone. Instead, ligaments, muscles and cartilage keep it in place, making it the only “floating bone” in your body.

What does the hyoid bone do?

It helps you to speak, swallow and breathe by supporting parts of your head and neck. Those include your:

• Epiglottis
• Muscles in the floor of your mouth
• Throat
• Tongue
• Voice box

Where is it located?

Your hyoid bone sits at the front of your neck, below your lower jaw and above your thyroid cartilage. If you picture your spine, your hyoid bone “floats” in front of your fourth cervical (neck) vertebrae.

It’s easy to see on X-rays, ultrasounds or CT scans. Healthcare providers use these devices to look for issues with your hyoid bone.

What are the parts of my hyoid bone?

There are three parts:

• Main body: This is the front (and thickest) portion. On average, it measures about 1 inch wide (2 1/2 centimeters) by half an inch (1 centimeter).
• Greater horns (greater cornua): These sections are the sides of your hyoid bone. They give the bone its shape and its name. Hyoid comes from the Greek term for things that are shaped like the letter upsilon or U.
• Lesser horns (lesser cornua): These are two small pieces of bone where the main body and greater horns connect. These bony pieces stick out from your hyoid bone.

Your hyoid bone changes over time. You’re born with three separate bones. Between the ages of 40 and 60, the bones typically grow together to become a single U-shaped bone.

What conditions or disorders affect your hyoid bone?

There are a few health conditions that can affect your hyoid bone, including:

• Broken hyoid bone: Rarely, you can fracture or break your hyoid bone. Trauma injuries, including gunshot wounds, injuries from car accidents or strangulation, are the most common causes.
• Hyoid bone syndrome: This is inflammation in the muscles and tendons that surround your hyoid bone. This can happen if you have tendonitis or neck injuries like whiplash.
• Osteoradionecrosis (ORN): This is a serious complication of head and neck radiation therapy. The therapy may cause bone death. ORN is most common in your lower jaw, but it may affect your hyoid bone.
• Rare cancers: Tumors like chondrosarcoma or osteosarcoma may affect it.

Issues with your hyoid bone and your airway can lead to obstructive sleep apnea. Your throat muscles relax when you sleep. Your throat muscles attach to your hyoid bone. When the muscles relax, the bone and other muscles and ligaments that connect to it can fall backward into your airway and block it.

Condition symptoms

Conditions that affect your hyoid bone often have similar symptoms. Some of the most common ones include:

• Bruising in your neck
• Difficulty speaking
• Feeling like there’s something stuck in your throat
• Hoarseness or a grating sound when you speak
• Neck or throat pain
• Pain when you swallow
• Shortness of breath
• Sores in your mouth or throat
• Unexplained facial pain

Some hyoid bone conditions cause symptoms that are like temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder symptoms. If you have TMJ that doesn’t get better with treatment, ask your healthcare provider to check your hyoid bone.

Is the hyoid bone your Adam’s apple?

No, your Adam’s apple is a bump in the front of your throat. It’s made of cartilage.

What happens if you break your hyoid bone?

Breaking your hyoid bone may affect your breathing if pieces of broken bone fall into your airway. Pain when you swallow and hoarseness are other things that may happen if you break this bone.

What happens if your hyoid bone is removed?

A surgeon could remove part of your hyoid bone without causing issues with the way you talk and swallow. They’d do this kind of surgery if you have a thyroglossal duct cyst.