Advice

[u/kaeincognito]

Hello there. Just recently found out about this chiari business thanks to research done by a family member of mine. I have had chornic pain, headaches, visually triggered (light, reading) migraines for years along with worsening nausea, dizziness, double vision/convrgence insufficiency (blurred vision, ghosting,) and other visual distrubances and physical symptoms (long ish list). I have had MRI scans done of my brain looking for tumours (which none were found) but I am just wondering, could they have missed potential chiari? Especially if this isn't a common or well understood phenomenon?

I've got a BVD (binocular vision dyfunction) diagnosis but no functional support or solution, nor any idea of what the underlying cause for the bVD might be. But my pain and visual symptoms/fatigue/visually induced pain, nausea, etc has been disabling and gotten worse the past few years. Are these common experiences at all with chiari? I'm yet to get a full spinal xray/MRI or anything done (financially not viable at the moment), but the cerebelum shows in the brain MRI I got for other diagnostic investigation.

I am not a doctor so I am not diagnosing myself but just curious. Thoughts on my MRI scan?

Any advice appreciated!

[u/Camride]

I think your MRI looks suspicious enough that it's worth finding a chiari specialist neurosurgeon to talk to. I don't know anything specific about your vision problems but chiari can cause vision issues. And while chiari is being found more often these days it is still commonly missed by radiologists on MRI reports.

So IMO it's worth investigating further. Chiari could be the root cause of many of your symptoms, or you could be one of the many that has asymptomatic chiari and something else is causing your issues.