Victoria Elena Estrada. Medullar Traction Syndrome. Arnold Chiari I Syndrome, Idiopathic Scoliosis.

Published by ICSEB at 20 October, 2011

Date of surgery: February 2011

Life testimonial

My name is Victoria Elena Estrada, I am Colombian, from Medellín, I am 51 years old, and I was diagnosed with Arnold Chiari I syndrome four years ago and I had a decompression, which did not work. I felt relatively well for six months and then the symptoms came back again and diminished my quality of life. I felt daily an intense headache which did not allow me to laugh, cough, sneeze, bend down, exercise, altogether things that reminded me of my illness. During the nights I woke up with an intense feeling of malaise in my hands so I would have to get up at whatever the time would be to shake them; I also felt an intense pain in the coccyx that had accompanied me for eight years and I had to sit on a special cushion, I underwent a caudal block under general anaesthesia, which did nor work for me.

All in all, there were a lot of factors that made me look further away from what was at my reach, and I found the Institut Chiari de Barcelona, where I found the solution to my problem. I wrote to them and send my exams, they responded that by the means of the excision of the Filum Terminale they could help me have a better quality of life, it would not eradicate the illness but at least it would stop its progress, so I took the decision to travel to Barcelona to undergo the surgery.

Now it´s been eight months since I had surgery and today I am a different person, I returned to life, I am happy, I am the person I was before the daily and aggressive symptomatology began – today I sing, dance, laugh, exercise, and I don´t have the worry that something is not functioning, my children and my husband are very happy to see me in my new state – they will have a mom and wife for a long time yet.

It is unbelievable, but the surgery is not painful, there is just the bother to have a small incision in the rear part of the hip, but after eight days you forget that you have been operated on, I did not have any problems on the way back to Colombia even though it was an eleven hours flight, two months after the surgery I started to exercise slowly and without any problems.

I want to tell everyone who reads this testimonial that you should not fear to consider this surgery as an alternative to the solution of your problem, if you are indicated to have it, they are a group of very expert physicians under the command of Dr. Royo, a very studied person and knowledgeable of this issue, he has taken many years of his life to investigate about this suffering that afflicts us, really the only thing I can say is: THANK YOU FOR EXISTING, DOCTOR.

Tel. (011574) 3165295566
Mail: [email protected]

Victoria’s video testimonial: