I recently found out I have tonsillar ectopia of 5mm. I know I'm no doctor but I'm fairly positive I have chiari malformation. I've been suffering from neck, shoulder, and back problems for several years that was generally diagnosed as pinch nerves or pulled muscles. In September this lovely pain decided to branch out and start radiating pain down my left arm. My gp had no clue so I was sent for an MRI in October. They found a few bone spurs on my c-spine so I was referred to a neurosurgeon. She informed me that she believed I was in pain but the spurs weren't touching anything so I was shuffled along to physical therapy for 6weeks. I had a lot of headaches that lasted for days at a time during all of this. The physical therapist told me I had trigger spots in my neck and shoulder muscles. They loosened me up to where I could turn my head again and sent me on my way. I've also been havin a lot of sinus problems with no apparent cause. I've had a bronc scope done that found nothing and allergy tests that all came up negative but my ears kept giving me trouble. They crackled every time I yawned or burped, it was extremely painful when air blew on my ears, it sounded like I had the ocean rolling around in my head and cotton in my ears. My ENT decided to fix all this I needed tubes put in. They got it all done but since they did that I've had a constant headache that starts at the base of my skull and radiates up over the left side of my head and sits behind my eyes. Pain killers do not help. So he sent me for another MRI and the radiologist found my tonsillar ectopia. Other symptoms I have are memory loss and sever forgetfulness, dizziness, headache pain intensifies when I bend over, anxiety, the neck pain has returned, I'm extremely clumsy (I bash into doorways constantly), awful mood swings, I get the little streamers at the sides of my vision when I bend over, fatigue, shaky hands, and my left hand occasionally just stops working. All of theses have gotten progressively worse in the last year. They put my referal in to a neurologist and I have my appointment with him on Tuesday. I printed out a chiari questionnaire and filled it out and plan to take it with me but I was wondering if any chiarian's out there could give me some advice on actually getting the doc to listen. I've read a lot of stories about this and people seem to have trouble getting the doc to listen and they go through years of pain without a diagnosis because of it. I'm beyond nervous

I do have a few other symptoms, occasional slurred speech, trouble thinking of words, and i have trouble saying the words I mean to say. I'm worried that because I was only referred for the headache they won't believe me about the rest of the symptoms. I didn't even realise that most of the other problems I have were symptoms until I started my searching online. I just thought I was kind of dingy ocassionally and excessively clumsy.