Hello my fellow chiari warriors! I am so happy to have found you, as no one else that I know is in my similar situation, but all of you are! :) Im wondering if anyone else but me was stable and then had a sudden onest of symptoms? I was diagnosed via MRI after a car accident last year. Was having constant stabbing, burning back pain in my mid thoracic spine, and turned out there was a syrinx right there! After being diagnosed with syringohydomyelia, I was diagnosed with Chiari a few months later, but was only having the back pain for the past 9 months (some occasional nausea, headaches). About 3 months ago, I developed horrible nausea, dizziness, vertigo, and worsened pain. Because of this, Ive scheduled surgery for 6/26/14. Just wondering how other ppls symptoms came on? Thanks for reading ;)
I forgot to mention since 3 months ago, my symptoms are constant, daily. I have difficulty finding words, poor memory, vision changes as well. Thanks again :)
Kristy, my Chiari symptoms started after a car accident. I got a severe headache that never went away, and I have read several other similar accounts on this site.
Over all my symptoms came on very quickly also, with no trauma involved.. I was having trouble swallowing & speaking loudly, about a year b4. Going to the doctors every other week they couldn't find the problem.. Now thinking back small issues were happening with my arm & shoulder. Nothing major so i shrugged it off thinking i pulled some thing.. All of a sudden 1 night i went to work by the end of my shift I was seeing double vision.. My eye had fallen ( Not knowing that at the time ) I thought i had gotten some thing in my eye or i was just extremely tired. I went home, After eye compreser's & eye drops nothing was working, went to the ER & they found nothing, Actually they did nothing. Just told us 2go c a eye doc. Once my eye had fallen every thing went down hill, symptom after symptom started coming up from now were.. From there we went to an eye doctor, were he saw some thing & had us go c a umpthomatrist ( i believe thats what he is called). After that we saw a Nurollogist & had a MRI. From there off 2 the Nuro surgeon & another MRI who finally told us I have CM & SM. I was told i needed surgery errgently, & a few days later i had Decompression surgery.. Sorry for the misspellings..
Good luck with your surgery!!
Thank you for all the insight friends! I am fascinated by this condition. I think it odd that I went almost a year after my accident without any symptoms other than the back pain, and then all of the sudden BAM! Headaches, dizziness, nausea,neuropathy, memory problems etc. My life changed essentially. Crazy! Thanks for all the comments. I love reading about your stories! :)