Hi and welcome to the Chiari forum.
FIrst let me thank ur DH and urself for his service to our country, I deeply appreciate his service and ur sacrifice in having him leave for long periods of time.
B4 u even consider surgery ur DH will need more testing to see how his Chiari is affecting his overall health in addition to the symptoms he is experiencing.....
A CINE MRI to rule out a CSF obstruction and over crowding....a MRI of the cervical,thoracic and lumbar spine...to help rule out disk issues, tethered cord, syringomyelia,ICP, POTS, ehlers-danlos and sleep apnea......
Most times meds do not help with the pains we all deal with during a flare...the more we do the worse we can feel....sometimes for days or weeks later....
U will want to find a true Chiari specialist as they know to look for all the related conditions and rule out non related conditions with similar symptoms.
We do have a list of Drs...being he is in the Military, he may not have a choice to who he sees.But feel free to use the list of Drs we compiled from the members here of Drs they have been to and liked...the list is NOT a referral nor an endorsement, just a means to help u get started in researching Drs.
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/list?cid=186
If u have ne questions feel free to ask : )
Know u and ur DH are not alone.