I'm new to this site and you all have been very welcoming. I was just diagnosed with 4-5 mm Chiari 1. Depending on what you classify as symptoms, I only went through about 3 months of the craziest symptoms before I was diagnosed (over a year if you count my heart palpitations). Does anyone go through remission with symptoms? I started having symptoms in early August; tingling, ear roaring, dizziness etc and I ran through gamut of doctors and several trips to the ER. Its now almost Thanksgiving and almost all my symptoms are gone, even the heart palpitations are almost completely gone. I still have the occasional dizziness, usually when I walk around for awhile, like at the mall or grocery shopping. I also occasionally feel a fullness or pressure in my head, like my ears need to pop.
Is it normal to go through relatively normal, symptom free periods and then have flare ups?
Absolutely!! It took me over a year of experiencing "symptoms" before I finally realized that something was wrong and finally talk to the doctor-then 2 years to get a diagnosis. I would just have sharp "occipital headaches" with strain maybe 1-2 times a month. Then they became more frequent but went away. I very slowly developed symptoms I didn't even realize like loss of balance/coordination, loss of fine motor skills, shaky hands, memory loss, nose bleeds, etc. I would go weeks with no symptoms then weeks with all of them. Now would be a GREAT time to find a good Neurologist who can follow you and be your side when they flare up but don't go away.
Thanks for the reassurance everyone. My neuro didn't seem to want to look any further once he saw chiari on the MRI report but also couldn't/wouldn't say that Chiari was indeed the source of my symptoms.And once my symptoms started getting better, I didn't know what was going on. My PCP is putting in a referral for me to see a Neurologist who is familiar with Chiari Malformation. I'll just be glad when i get some real answers from someone who knows what's going on.
I have had a full blood work up and no deficiencies or other irregularities they could find. I have T-Spine MRI next week to check for Syrinx. I'll probably check with the neurosurgeon to see if I should have a Cine MRI done too.