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Surgery...How do you decide?

Tue, 09/16/2008 - 09:58

I know opting for surgery is a personal decision, but I just want to explore other's experiences...

My son, 12yrs, has partial seizures, some Simple, some Complex.  He's on two meds, both causing cognitive side effects, which of course makes learning difficult, plus makes things difficult for him socially.  We've never gotten full control of his seizures... Sometimes they come daily, sometimes every two weeks.  We're at the end of the Medications options... No more to try.

Do we just live with partial seizure control, or do we continue to strive for full control with Surgery.  It seems so scary to me... I just want to do whats best for my son. 

If you've had the surgery, please share your experience, OR if you've considered  surgery, but opted against it. 

Thank you so much, Val

Comments

Re: Surgery...How do you decide?

Submitted by bloxsom on Wed, 2008-09-17 - 15:12
right now me and my husband are going through the same thing decideing what woul be right for my 5 year old daughter.on september 29th she is going in to the hospital for a 2 week eeg and other testing to see if she is a canidate for the brain surgery or possibally there is a stimulant implant that they put that sends electrodes to the brain.it's very scary we don't know what to do.she has been having quite a few seizures last week getting on the bus she had a seizure she never made it up the first step so i went over picked her up and brought her home and called the doctor and now the doctors don't want her to go to school until after all this testing.i'm hoping in the next month or so we get some answers and the seizures start to get better and she come off of some of her medicine she takes 4 different meds 2times a day for eoilepsey and 1 for adhd.she has learning problems speech problems and behavoir problems i'm if and when she gets one of the surgeries that all of that will grt better.so believe me i know what you are going through and it is so hard.i cry all the time and just hope that god leads us in the right direction.brenda        god bless          and i believe what ever happens is the way things are suppose to be but beleive me i am scared to death.my e-mail if you want to talk is sbtn1260@aol.com      take care and i hope everything works out for you

Re: Surgery...How do you decide?

Submitted by Adisney990 on Wed, 2008-09-17 - 23:13
are they treating your child with a non stimulate form of ADHD medication?  I know they are doctors and obviously know what they're doing, but I don't know why they would risk increasing seizure activity just to treat ADHD.  I had all the same problems your daughter is having except for the speech issues.  I'm 28 and still taking Ritalin for ADHD but they took me off of it when I got sick. 

Re: Surgery...How do you decide?

Submitted by bloxsom on Thu, 2008-09-18 - 20:04
well my daughter has been on the adhd medicine the sameone that is since april the seizures reall didn't start to get really bad until probablly june and before she even started taking adhd medicine she was already on 2 types of epilepsy medicine.she tahes vivanse i don't know if it's a non stimulant well probablly not though it is a narcotic and the doctor has to give me a new perscription every month to get it filled.

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