children/ Herniations

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 3/23/99 7:00:22 AM, you wrote:

<<<This sentence really got me thinking as well. Are there *normal* ranges

for herniations? And if so, do they vary between adult and child? Danny's

tonsillar herniation was 15 mm at age 3. Does that mean he was off the

charts for a child his age?>

<Assuming that a chiari malformation is congenital in origin, does the

herniation of the cerebellar tonsils continue to deepen as the child

matures to adulthood?>

Great questions, wish I knew the answers.

You may recall that the more severe symptoms that Zachary had (headaches,

throwing-up) mysteriously went away, right before his surgery was scheduled

(we postponed the surgery.) I wonder if since his head was still growing

and the head shape was not set and since he had a smaller herniation, if a

growth spurt/change opened up some room for him. He will still choke if he

eats too fast and will draw up his shoulder, so I realize that the Chiari

didn't go away. But I'm grateful for the delay in the surgery.

Vikki, Suzanne, if you get responses directly to either question, please

forward them on to me. I'm really curious.

Thanks.

>>

ok , so ive been waiting for someone to dig up the abstracts regarding

children and degree of herniation , there are a couple that ive seem diging

through pubmed abstracts . i dont have good recolection of the numbers given ,

but yes , 15 mm is quite significant .....and yes the degree of herniation ,

found to be in *normal* range , does change with age .

beyond that , my memory is way unreliable ( like blank ) ....so ill leave this

to the folks sleuthing through those abstracts , and watch (hope ) for someone

to stumble over em , then perhaps cut and paste the relevent bits to the list

:-)

seems to me , this info for both adults and peds , would be a nice addition to

the web site , along with an explanation of measurements , and the posterior

fossa measurment techiniques .....or is this perhaps too confusing to be

helpful to most folks ? (Darlene , i think you have more experience with

learning to do these measurements .....is this beyond most of us ?) Since the

doctors have so much trouble comming up with agreement on the degree of

herniation , i wonder if its really hard to learn to do well ?

got way to much work now , to chase any of this till perhaps the weekend , and

im wanting to work on the list of tests i sugested for that same web site (

lost this twice in 2 computer crashes now !! starting to think its jinked

karma or something like that !)

so im sitting out the search , but perhaps just knowing they are out there ,

will make it easy for someone with time .

sarah in paradise

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[Guest guest]

> <<<This sentence really got me thinking as well. Are there *normal* ranges

> for herniations? And if so, do they vary between adult and child? Danny's

> tonsillar herniation was 15 mm at age 3. Does that mean he was off the

> charts for a child his age?>

I am finally getting around to answering this with my opinion. Better late than

never!

Dr. Milhorat reviewed 's MRI's. He doesn't have a herniation, but he has a

very crowded posterior fossa. He classified him as borderline chiari. He said

that things will change as he grows, he may get rid of the chiari all together,

or

symptoms could get worse. So that is what he had to say on tonsilar herniation,

or lack there of.

Kathleen in Maine

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