Surgery questions

[Kyra_M]

Hi everyone! My name is Kyra and I'm 16, 17 next month. I was diagnosed with chiari 1 two years ago but have been exhibiting symptoms for much longer. My head aches/pains get in the way of pretty much all activities, and often times my neck stiffens up and a great deal of pressure is put on it and my ears as well. Before I go to college, I want to get the decompression surgery so I can have a normal college experience. The chiari could also potentially keep me from the career path I've been born to go down.
I guess my questions are, how long is the recovery process? Are there any specific things you're not able to do for a while? And most importantly, has insurance covered any of your surgerys? Thank you all so much!

[oops1990]

Hi Kyra - everyone has a different experience with surgeries and as Selma mentioned, surgery doesn't guarantee that anything will go back to "normal." In my case I was 22 and a senior in college when I had my first surgery. Surgery took place over winter break (December 2012) and I was able to return to classes for my spring semester just 8 days after surgery. I had to take things very easy, though. I took a 5 weeks off work and focused just on school and resting/recovering, as well as going to physical therapy twice a week for 2 months. The therapy was great and involved neck and arm exercises, heat therapy on my neck and some lovely massages that loosened up my stiff muscles. I graduated on time, and have even had 2 more surgeries since graduation. Again, just as Selma said, remember to rest and don't rush your recovery. If you stay positive and adjust your daily activities as necessary, surgeries and Chiari don't have to keep you from living your life =)

Best wishes
-Vicki

[selmaS]

  Hi and welcome to the Chiari forum.

Having surgery does not guarantee u will have a  "normal" life or college experience.....all surgery can do is restore CSF flow and we hope it lessens symptoms....but it can take up to 2 yrs to completely heal ...inside as the nerves take longer to heal then the incision.

Having other related conditions can also affect how long it may take u to recover....so u do have to rule out ALL related and non related conditions FIRST!!

And if u r patient, and will rest and not rush back to daily activities can help u with ur recovery....u will need to walk, move ur neck etc....but some want to do everything since they do tend to feel better post op, but doing so can cause major set backs....

Last make sure u have a true Chiari specialist and not just a NS that will do this surgery,...as that can also factor into ur recovery.

We do have a list of activities to avoid with Chiari and Syringomyelia in the Health Pages....http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/list?cid=186

May I ask, have u had a CINE MRI and a complete spine MRI to look for other related issues?

How have ur symptoms changed since u were first DX'd?