Hello back, my goofy friend!

They're called that because they resemble tonsils. Here's a picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebellar_tonsils When I heard this I had to look it up -- my first thought was that it just didn't make sense they could see the tonsils in a brain MRI!
Nancy, I just looked and found this:
http://www.co-cure.org/chiari.htm It's almost 10 years old so I wonder where it's gone from here. I'm not sure that no headaches is reason to dismiss Chiari. I'm going to check but I don't recall either woman having them. This whole thing was really amazing to me though. Having lived through their sx with them by virtue of their posts over a long period of time it was no surprise they were posting on an MS board! Everything they went through absolutely sounded like it could be MS. As far as the surgery, the woman who already had it done was back at home in MA from NY and on the computer I think as early 3 days later and is already feeling relief and is getting around. I'm with you -- Cherie's also posted about Syringomyelia and it does kind of make me wonder if there are other malformations that could make people symptomatic.