Syringomyelia after spinal cord injury

[tifffanylynn]

Syrinx at C2 after a spinal cord injury. 2017 car accident, 2020 syrinx symptoms begin, 2022 C2, C3 and C4 decompressive laminectomy,  In Oct 2022 I had shunt placed. The shunt was supposed to help with my symptoms. However they keep getting worse. Causing nerve pain on my face, lack of feeling. Why is it affecting my left worse? Will I ever have a new normal? Every day my body is changing. My anxiety and depression is severe.

[selmaS]

Hi and welcome to the Chiari forum.

I am so sorry you are in such distress. May I ask, were you checked for a possible reaction to the shunt? Many of us can have allergies to hardware placed in our bodies and the bodies response is to produce more CSF to wash it away and instead of looking into why, they tend to place a shunt and now there is more foreign material in our body and it is producing more CSF!!!

I am not sure if you also have Chiari or just the syrinx....but regardless I would suggest making sure it is not the hardware placed into you that is making you feel worse.
I am not a medical professional, just someone who has seen this issue crop up many times.

[tifffanylynn]

I don't have chiari my doctor says that my CT doesn't look worse. But my symptoms are still progressing.

[selmaS]

Have you had any MRI's recently since the symptoms are progressing? What areas did the CT cover?

[tifffanylynn]

I recently did an MRI. It showed that it looks the same. However my symptoms have worsened. My doctor explained that I might be having Micro tears that aren't visible on the mri. This was my second opinion. A different doctor that the one that did the surgery. I'm starting to accept that this might just be a progressive disorder. Which is not something I take lightly