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elective brain surgery
Sat, 05/21/2005 - 16:52Hi, my name is Kathy and my twin sister has had epilepsy for 30 + yrs. She has been ok'd for left temporal lobe brain surgery in the near future. Is there anyone out there who has had the surgery or is anticipating having the surgery? I would really like to talk about it. Thanks.
RE: RE: RE: elective brain surgery
Submitted by saffr0n on Sun, 2005-05-29 - 20:02
Hi Karen,
My name's Belle and my husband has TLE with complex partial szs. He blacks out and licks his lips for a bit before opening his eyes again, but even though he can talk to me this period is 'black' to him and doesn't remember anything of it. They can last anywhere from 5 - 20 minutes.
We have another appt to see his specialist in 2 weeks. They're going to tell him whether he's a candidate for surgery and whether they need to do one or two ops. The first is to attach the electrodes directly onto the brain to see exactly which portion of the Left Temporal Lobe needs to be removed. If they find that they already have enough data to do surgery they'll just do one op to remove the affected portion of the brain.
He doesn't talk much about it - one day he wants to do it and the next he doesn't. He was sz free for 5 years and had his D.L back too. He finally got the car he wanted for years and 12 months later his szs were back. You can imagine his frustration at not being able to drive his own car!
He was taking Tegretol, Lamicatal and Dilantin during the time he was sz free. When they came back, they tried him on Topamax with awful side affects, so stopped that and tried Keppra, and stopped Dilantin. They've also dropped him back one tab a day on tegretol. He's now on just Tegretol and Keppra. The most he goes without sz is a month and then they come back with several in a month.
I think the side affects of the drugs and his szs are harder to live with for both of us. He keeps losing his taste, is quite moody and agitated too.
Do you have any advice for him on considering surgery and do you experience any similar side effects? What kind of szs do you have?
I wish you all the very best for your pending tests and surgery and my thoughts are with you and your family.
Belle.
Hi Karen,
My name's Belle and my husband has TLE with complex partial szs. He blacks out and licks his lips for a bit before opening his eyes again, but even though he can talk to me this period is 'black' to him and doesn't remember anything of it. They can last anywhere from 5 - 20 minutes.
We have another appt to see his specialist in 2 weeks. They're going to tell him whether he's a candidate for surgery and whether they need to do one or two ops. The first is to attach the electrodes directly onto the brain to see exactly which portion of the Left Temporal Lobe needs to be removed. If they find that they already have enough data to do surgery they'll just do one op to remove the affected portion of the brain.
He doesn't talk much about it - one day he wants to do it and the next he doesn't. He was sz free for 5 years and had his D.L back too. He finally got the car he wanted for years and 12 months later his szs were back. You can imagine his frustration at not being able to drive his own car!
He was taking Tegretol, Lamicatal and Dilantin during the time he was sz free. When they came back, they tried him on Topamax with awful side affects, so stopped that and tried Keppra, and stopped Dilantin. They've also dropped him back one tab a day on tegretol. He's now on just Tegretol and Keppra. The most he goes without sz is a month and then they come back with several in a month.
I think the side affects of the drugs and his szs are harder to live with for both of us. He keeps losing his taste, is quite moody and agitated too.
Do you have any advice for him on considering surgery and do you experience any similar side effects? What kind of szs do you have?
I wish you all the very best for your pending tests and surgery and my thoughts are with you and your family.
Belle.