Emily Cockerham
Another incredible chiari trauma to healing story that needs to be highlighted. Emily, a 19 year old from Devon England, was a very healthy and active child until she began noticing head pains at the age of 7 when bouncing on her trampoline. After years of ignoring it, her pain began to increase. At the age of 14, her headaches became unbearable, often leaving her bed bound. After a year of suffering, she was finally diagnosed with chiari malformation type 1 with a 14mm herniation. Two months later, due to her pain and symptoms being so severe, she was taken in to have decompression brain and spinal surgery. This decompression seemed to help reduce pain for a while, however 5 months later all of Emily’s symptoms returned some being worse than before. Her main symptoms were head neck and back pain, fatigue, tingling in arms and legs, slurred speech, brain fog, confusion, balance and some swallowing issues. Her full diagnosis was chiari brain malformation, pots, hypermobility spectrum disorder, scoliosis and myalgic encephalitis (chronic fatigue). She had previously briefly heard of the Filum Terminale sectioning surgery performed in Barcelona however didn’t consider this until 2024. After speaking with Dr Salca and Elena of The Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona (ICSEB) she had the extradural filum terminale sectioning minimally invasive surgery in November 2024. Her experience at the chiari institute was incredible. Everyone was so lovely and understanding. Waking up after surgery she felt instant relief and was able to walk around the same day. She is now 3 months post op and working on recovery and her health. Each day she sees more and more improvements, being able to walk more and help out around the house and has even been able to go to a Sabrina Carpenter concert post filum sectioning which would have been impossible prior to sectioning. She is absolutely grateful to everyone at the institute and to everyone who has supported her! Wishing Emily all the best on further symptom improvements!
Emily has been very active on social media and creating incredible TikTok videos to spread more awareness of the extradural filum sectioning surgery in Barcelona, below is a video documentary of what she has been through! See the Full Video here: https://youtu.be/reVv7GThxIk
