Cristiana Sapienza. Cord Traction Syndrome. Descent of the cerebellar tonsils (DCT).

Published by ICSEB at 3 June, 2015

Date of surgery: November 2013

The patient with Arnold Chiari I Syndrome tells us that she received her first diagnosis in 2005, by chance in a migraine check-up. Then, she was indicated an occipital decompression surgery, which she refused, for not finding a balance between the risks involved and the benefit obtained by this technique.

Her illness worsened over the years, she went to other neurosurgeons, and many of those again suggested her to go for the craniectomy, which she had already rejected twice.

Two years ago she had a serious crisis of intracranial hypertension, and decided that she had to take a final decision for solving the problem: the pain would not let her have a normal life.

She found the Institut Chiari of Barcelona and Dr. Royo, and contacted them.

Once she was there, she was indicated the surgery of Sectioning of the filum terminale, and despite not knowing whether it would solve the pain, she decided to go for the surgery.

After a month and a half, she says that she doesn’t take pain medication any longer (she used to take opioids), that she has improved at neurological level also, and that if she could go back in time, she would have gotten operated before.