lowered cerebral tonsils

[abbeys_mom]

my little girl, abbey is 1 so she can't exactly tell me when something is wrong.  Our doctor referred her on to a Pediatric Neurologist in Montgomery, AL because she had went from walking great to hardly walking at all.  After several blood test and x-rays we finally had a MRI of her head and spine done.  The one of the spine looked fine, but the one of her head showed that her cerebral tonsils were inflamed and lowered.  She said that they were being pulled down into her foramen magnum.  Then she really confused me because she was just going to say that her problem was Ataxia.  I couldn't understand this.  So...  We are scheduled to go see another Pediatric Neurologist at Children's Hospital in Birmingham, AL.  Needless to say it's taking a while to actually get in to see the doctor.  Well...  I've noticed this week that she's became very irritable and she's been banging her head on things.  She's even got a bad bruise on her face from all the banging.  I don't know whether it might be the cerebral tonsils causing problems for her  or what...  I'm just really worried about her and was wondering if someone might be able to help me.  Thanks for all your help in advance.

[biz_mom]

sound like she might have Chiari Malformation

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

Ataxia is a term used to describe incoordination of muscles responsible for balancing the body. Ataxia is not a diagnosis. The reason for her ataxia is the lowering of the tonsils and a possible cerebellar dysfunction.

As mentioned by biz_mom, this could be a manifestation of the Chiari malformation. In this malformation, the cerebellar tonsils are elongated. They tend to protrude out of the foramen magnum and in the process, block the CSF flow, leading to increased pressure in the cranial cavity.

Your daughter is most probably experiencing headaches. Head banging is a sign of headache in children, since they can not communicate it like we do.

When do you expect to see the new pediatric neurologist?

Regards

[abbeys_mom]

Thank you for explaining to me why she told me Abbey had Ataxia.  Now I understand and that makes me feel a little better.  I had wondered if it might be a headache, but tylenol doesn't seem to be helping.  She's supposed to see the new pediatric neurologist on April 14th.  I'm going to call today to see if maybe I can get her in earlier because the head banging is concerning me.  I'm afraid she's going to do some damage if I can't get it stopped.  I'll update when I know more.  Also, thank you biz_mom.  I wasn't quite sure what it was called.  The other neurologist that discovered the condition didn't really tell me anything about it.