Syringomyelia URGENT !!

[em84]

Hello
My brother is 19 yrs old and has been dealing with syringomyelia for the past 4 yrs. the first condition started with numbness in his right leg followed by weakness and change in size as it got much smaller than the other leg. after MRI it was dicovered that he had the disease which required a surgery. it was dicovered that he had a cyst (syrinx) located between T9 and T11 laminoplasty resection of the lesion with fenestration of pharyngeal amylia. it was drained successfully. followed by physiotherapy, a foot drop in his right leg has occured after 4 months only from the first surgery, and weakness in his left feet. after another MRI, which showed a presisting cystic lesion in the thoracic cord and another cystic lesion immediately above the conus. he underwent a surgery a year later and both lesions turned out to be cystic intramedullary tumours, which have been resected. after the surgery his left foot restored its strength, and the right foot restored about 50% of the strength.

currently, for the past 4 weeks he started feeling numbness in his right arm, underarm and downwards. after another MRI, it showed the presence of another syringomyelia which extends all the way throughout the cord in the thoracic level and reaches the level of C5.

Question: his previous surgent advices with another surgery to resect the cyst, and the nature of this cyst is still questionable between a syrinx or a tumour. therefore, is surgery the only answer to this condition, and is a shunt needed to be implanned for drainage ? if not, then what is adviced to do in addition ?

(any information about this condition would be highly appreciated)

Thank you

[selmaS]

Hi and welcome to the Chiari forum.

Ur brother is lucky to have a sister like u willing to be an advocate for him : )
May I ask has ur brother had a MRI of his brain?....did the drs say they felt the syrinx is due to scar tissue or result of his other surgery?

AS far as to shunt or dissect is based on size and which it is...a tumor or a syrinx.....I know many with a syrinx can not have a shunt or a stint placed bcuz of the syrinx being too small.

I would advise looking for a dr that specializes in chiari and syringomyelia to get an assessment on how to move forward. We do have a thread with drs names, Please research all drs to find one u r comfortable with.....not all may be true chiari specialists, but members here have listed their drs names that they were happy with.So, it gives u a starting point.

Not being medical personal we can only share info on what we have learned of our own chiari /syringomyelia journeys and suggest u get a second opinion.....Unless u r confident with his surgeon.....then follow his lead....u must find a dr u trust, and go with his/her suggestions....

Glad to have u here as part of our little family, sorry the reason u had to seek us out!

"selma"

[Spaceystac]

Is this new syrinx being caused by a tumor as well?  If so, resection would help the syrinx drain naturally. Im not sure I have any real advice but, maybe you should go to google and search syrinx's there is images and actual doctor case studies all over the web. There is the Health pages  and health links on here with lots if info, but anything on here is on google as well.  Here is a good link that I found and bookmarked.
http://www.asap.org/articles/batzdorf_sm_cm.pdf
this is one of my favorite links to share, hope it helps!
Stacey