When we are diagnosed with Chiari and meet with a neurosurgeon (often for the first time in our lives), we get the whole spiel on Chiari and the Posterior Fossa Decompression that we “need to attempt to stop the progression of our symptoms.” We respect their position and the knowledge that they have, so we believe every word that they tell us. We’re told that there is a 50/50 chance of relieving each individual symptom, slightly higher for the relief of our debilitating headaches. Most of us are so happy to finally have someone believe us and give it a name, and we jump at the chance to finally have an opportunity to hold our heads up again without pain.

With surgery complete, however, it seems that they forget about the 50/50 chance that they gave us, and we are left being told that we “are cured” and the Chiari is no longer the source of our continued problems.

THE TRUTHS ARE AS FOLLOWS…

• DECOMPRESSION IS NOT A CURE!
• DECOMPRESSIONS FAIL FAR MORE THAN NEUROSURGEONS ADMIT!
• THEIR DECOMPRESSION SUCCESS RATES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT THEIR PATIENTS FEEL LIKE AFTER DECOMPRESSION!
• YOUR CONTINUED SYMPTOMS PROBABLY ARE NOT FROM THE CHIARI, BUT FROM UNDIAGNOSED COMORBID CONDITIONS THAT YOUR NEUROSURGEON KNOWS LITTLE/NOTHING ABOUT & IN SOME CASES, THEY MAY HAVE BEEN MADE WORSE BY THE DECOMPRESSION ITSELF.
• UNDIAGNOSED COMORBIDITIES ARE THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF FAILED DECOMPRESSIONS!

It’s imperative that we have a thorough understanding of all related comorbid conditions BEFORE we allow them to remove the ONLY bone holding our brains up inside of our skulls. Since they don’t always know, we MUST have an ACCURATE LIST OF QUESTIONS, that ask the HARD questions. We now have such a list for you: https://chiaribridges.org/questions-for-your-first-neurosurgery-appointment/