Work, school, travel, disability, success stories?

[Aries39]

Hello everyone,
Just wondering with this lifelong condition will I live a normal life again.
So many questions and worries. I'm suppose to graduate college after this Spring
semester but I was wondering will I be able to handle my last three classes.
I've stopped working because this all started due to an accident. But now seeing in an
MRI that I have low living cerebellar tonsils; will this be now a permanent disability for
the rest of my life. At this point, sitting, standing, walking for too long becomes a problem.
I been seeing a physical therapist, orthopedic, acupuncturist, massager, atleast 3 times
a week. Should I be concerned on how I'm being treated. Do I need to be seeing an
acupuncturist/physical therapist for intense that knows how to treat bulging discs, curvature spasms
of the cervical spine, degenerative disc disease and spasms othe thoracic spine and anterolisthesis
at L5-S1 of the lumbar spine? Tomorrow they are going to see my cervical spine results.
If anyone can help me with this, I would appreaciate it. Thank you

[selmaS]

Hi and welcome to the Chiari forum.

It sounds like from what u have mentioned so far, that u issues right now may be from ur disk issue as u only mention leg, back issues?....not sure what else u have going on as far as symptoms.

Low lying tonsils may be chiari and it may be asymptomatic and ur issues all from the bulging disk.

U need to find out if ur cerebellum is overcrowded and if u have a CSF blockage...a syrinx, tethered cord....and ne other chiari related conditions.

Do be careful with the massage as if they manipulate ur neck (cervical spine ) too much it can aggravate chiari and a syrinx if u should have one.

U want to know how large a herniation ur tonsils r, and if they r blocking CSF.....
ask for copies of all MRI's and reports so u may get a second opinion. Many of us find that drs do not look at low lying tonsils with much credence that it may be affecting us.

Put together a list of all ur symptoms....

Glad to welcome u to our little family, sorry the reason u had to seek us out.

"selma"

[*Stormy*]

Hello and Welcome!

Although it his hard for me to really comment on how much this will affect my life down the road (I am 6 weeks post op), I can say this. I had to pull out of school and rearrange my life last year when my symptoms progressed to being debilitating, I couldn't walk properly and had problems with prolonged standing, sitting and walking. Pretty much all I could do to be comfortable is to lie down and even that didn't work all the time.
Post-op- I have seen quite an improvement in my legs, I am not at the point yet where I could see going back to school, as what I was taking will lead to an active job. However, I discussed this with my PT and she is fairly confident that one day I will get there and I am hoping for the same. I still have a lot of head problems but I am told that it can take up to a year to see some of that being resolved. So, even though I haven't made it there yet, I think that there is a lot of hope that you can get a lot stronger and get back to a life somewhat close to the one you used to know. I don't know much about the specialists other than that I think going to PT is going to be a very good thing for me.  Oh, and I believe that early intervention is really important, which it sounds like you have, so that puts you in a better place already.
Good luck!
Carolyn