Car Wreck Anniversary

[Shane99]

Today (Dec 10th) is the 6th anniversary of the car wreck that "activated" my Chiari. :(

But I'm still alive. :D

[Shane99]

Don't feel bad. Apparently it confuses a lot of Doctors :)

[selmaS]

I c......I just am amazed how small mine is and I've known for yrs there was something going on.....and here u had no clue until the accident caused it to grow.....

I must agree that my "fall" agrivated my chiari symptoms and they r worse since then....but I have had to compensate for how I was feeling.....and no one found it and when they did, called it incidental.

it just confuses me.

[Shane99]

Well, my doctors say my herniation could have been fairly small, but I received head trauma in the wreck - they believe that could have "activated" the Chiari.

So, I may have had a small herniation that grew to 20mm over the last 5 years and started giving me the other symptoms that led me to catch it.

[selmaS]

oh...ok....I guess it is diff for me to wrap my brain around the fact my herniation is small in comparison and I have all these issues and u had a syrinx and a large herniation and had no idea......

I know we will all be different, but am confused by the findings here.

[Shane99]

Not that I recall. I was 32 and fit as a fiddle - well, okay, I was overweight, but nothing serious was wrong with me before the wreck.

Since then, I've just never been the same. It's like my life is split in two - before wreck and after wreck.

[selmaS]

Looking back, u didn't have ne pains ect...prior to the "wreck"?

I am under the belief, that we ignore some of the symptoms as expected for our age, or whatever, stress we may have ect....

curioius.
"selma"

[Shane99]

Yeah, I don't really know. The wreck caused damage to my hand, arm, shoulder, neck, and head - all of those are where I have issues now. My Chiari Doctors agree that the wreck may have "activated" my Chiari, but there is actual wreck damage also, so it's kind of hard to say when certain things were more clearly caused by the Chiari.

Last Autumn I started having the bigger headaches and dizziness. My shoulder/arm/hand pains started bothering me a lot more, but I associated that with damage/arthritis from the wreck.

I really realized something serious was going on when I started falling down from the balance issues around last January, but it was still late March before my PCP (at the time - I now have a knew one) finally agreed to send me to a neurologist. I was expecting him to find some wreck related nerve damage, that's why it was such a shock when he said I had an incurable brain malformation and needed brain surgery as soon as possible.

But, here I am - 6 years after a very bad wreck and almost 8 months post-chiari surgery. It's been rough, but I'm not paralyzed, I'm able to walk around and enjoy myself . . .it could have been a lot worse.  

[selmaS]

That's a positive way to look at it....how long till u had actual symptoms, now that u know what the symptoms r?.......cuz I know many of us brush off symptoms as growing older, or chalk it up to an accident, not realizing it is the chiari.

"selma"