Quote:
Originally Posted by KelsieG
Hi all,
I am a 26 year old female. I teach at a community college and have no health insurance. About three weeks ago, I started experiencing feelings of weakness in my right leg, only in the evenings. About two weeks ago, I woke up and the entire right side of my body felt weak--leg, hand, arm, and face (including my right eye, which FEELS droopy, but is not). I knew it wasn't muscular weakness, because I could still stand on one leg, lift weights, do yoga, etc. A few mornings ago, I began experiencing numbness on the right side of my face, to the point that speaking became difficult. I went to the ER and they did blood work (all normal) and an MRI, to rule out stroke and, possibly, MS. The doctor came and told me that everything looked fine, but that I had a Chiari malformation. He then told me it was nothing to worry about and NOT the cause of my symptoms. He thought perhaps some compressed nerves were to blame for my arm/leg symptoms, and that my face was going numb due to anxiety.
I came home and looked it up and was shocked to find that a vast majority of my symptoms are present with Chiari malformation!
I have been prone to terrible headaches for much of my life and have always chalked it up to stress/hormones (maybe it still is...I don't know). I have also had an odd "clicking" that felt as though it were coming from inside my skull when I ran/jumped. I don't know if that has to do with anything, but it always unnerved me a bit.
I guess I'm wondering...can Chiari symptoms present on only one side of the body?? My left side is completely fine. The weak feelings on the right side are going away a little, but my right eye feels as though someone is standing behind it trying to push it out of my skull. I'm also experiencing sensitivity to light and sound. My mother thinks it's a sinus infection (she had one that made her face go numb and messed up her eyesight) and told me to take some Mucinex D. I'm growing increasingly certain that my chairi malformation has something to do with this.
Was my doctor wrong to brush this off? Should I find a new doctor or go ahead an follow up with the old one? I would really like to try to find myself some health insurance before a firm diagnosis is made. If the only treatment option really is surgery...I...I just can't imagine.
I feel very alone and frightened right now. Will chiari kill me? Will the symptoms rapidly get so bad that I lose motor function or my eyesight? I'm terrified and poor and I feel a little angry that the doctor didn't even entertain this as a possibility.
Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do now?
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My onset of symptoms was very similar, except I fainted at dinner one night and in the next week was left with left sided facial tingling, rt hand and foot tingling and weakness, head pressure that felt like a sinus infection, and episodes of what seems like a panic attack out of the blue. My MRI ruled out other scary things but confirmed the C1M. One of my docs, upon my complaint of sinus pressure, said, "just out of curiosity, try a nasal decongestant or allergy med. and see what that does." Well, to my surprise, it took away the head pressure, and the tingling and weakness in my face as well as my hand and foot!! So, I reported back after 3 consecutive days of this and my doc prescribed Flonase, a nasal steroid, 100mcg one time per day, and even on the first day, I had longer lasting symptom relief. Now my symptoms are being very well controlled for 2 weeks, well with the exception of intermittent episodes of panic attacks. So, you can take this info, and atleast try the decongestant, over the counter, as directed, and report back on any symptom change to your doc. What it does, is it gives them the feedback that your symptoms are being relieved by taking pressure off at the brainstem area via an antiinflammatory pathway.
Hope this helps!