Hi Casey,
Just a couple of observations here, first, the red line intersects your cerebellar tonsils but only very slightly, certainly not to fit the criteria of Chiari 1 but, your cerebellar tonsils are what’s referred to as ‘low lying’, which can interfere with the free flowing of cerebro spinal fluid at the cranio-cervical junction.
The cerebro spinal fluid should be able to pass freely between the head and the spine, if it is interfered with in any way, it can cause problems, particularly if your cerebellar tonsils act’s as a ‘bung’ at the cranio-cervical junction, this can contribute to raised intracranial pressure, which wouldn’t show up with a lumbar puncture. NEVER let them do a lumbar puncture on you.
Lumbar puncture test – DON’T DO IT!
I have heard that some of you, who’ve been lured into having a lumbar puncture have come back with a false ‘normal pressure’ result even though you have obvious symptoms of raised intracranial pressure. Worse still, due to the reduction of spinal CSF pressure, the cerebellar tonsils have ‘bunged up the plughole’ so to speak and this then causes worsening symptoms. So you don’t just get a false test result but you’re made much worse – avoid it at all costs. There are non-invasive methods.