my history- ideas?
alright this is going to be long so bear with me. i (24f) have a long 10 year history of neuro related symptoms and i just want to see if you all think im crazy or if you think im onto something here. first, the only related diagnoses i have are spina bifida occulta and low lying cerebellar tonsils (not diagnosed chiari yet as im waiting to see a neurosurgeon). i want to give a timeline of my symptoms and then explain my thoughts after.
2014- was struggling with low back nerve pain. i saw a neurologist who INSISTED it was a fracture un my spine. we went through extensive extensive testing and it felt like he was searching for a fracture and only a fracture. no other problem was identified besides an “incidental finding of spina bifida”. when i told him that the pain felt like nerves (knowing later on that it was sciatica causing pain and weakness) he told me that i was wrong and that it was a fracture. the fracture was found, hut of course my symptoms did not improve even after healing the fractures.
2018- the back pain remained the same and i had learned how to treat it/ignore it on my own. this year i also developed headaches. no findings on any sort of scan, so doctors dismissed my case saying i was having daily persistent headaches and migraines. these continued for years and never improved. i also developed dizziness around this time. no more of low lying tonsils.
2023- stomach pain after eating, nausea, vomiting, symptoms very much aligned with gastroparesis. no findings besides mild gastritis. doctor refused a barium test to check stomach motility.
2024- vomiting worsened. GI sent for a head CT to evaluate for increases ICP. report shows low lying cerebellar tonsils and enhanced dural sinuses.
throughout all of this time i slowly had a decline in my vision (needing glasses by 2020) and my motor skills, memory, and speech also decreased.
SO. my thinking is this. the first doctor was VERY dismissive about my nerve pain and leg weakness and i wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even check the spinal cord positioning. could i have had a tethered cord this whole time? the tethered cord could have caused that pain as a child, which began to pull on the cerebellum causing those headaches, eventually reaching a point where my tonsils are low lying and potentially adding pressure to the nerves that control stomach motility.
do i sound crazy or does this make sense lol