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I would like surgery
Thu, 12/03/2015 - 15:40I am 36 and live in NZ. I have had epilepsy for about 15 years and have been on 6 of different meds over that period with many "cocktail" combinations of them (epilem, tegratol, topamax, lamictal, clobazam, dilantin) but my seizures still aren't under control, i am having a complex roughly every 2 weeks. I am getting very frustrated and feel like i am a "lab rat" going through trial and error testing of all the AED drugs available in NZ. My next option is Keppra which has only recently been brought into the country, I am not prepared to use it given some of the extreme side effects. I contacted my Neuro asking to be a candidate for surgery, however was refused saying that "I have a normal MRI". About 4 months ago i went into hospital for an EEG and from there the levels of my meds were increased, then increased again 3 weeks ago, so something isn't normal. I did some reaserch and found somthing from Harvard Medical School regarding surgical treatment of epilepsy. When reading the document there was no mention of MRI scans, with an EEG investigation being the way to determine if surgery is an option for a patient (being hospitalized for up to 2 weeks on low meds so they can get an EEG when having a seizure). I saw that a temporal lobectomy has a 75% - 85% success rate. I contacted my Neuro again yesterday after having another complex, and basically said "I want one of these tests done". Could somebody out there please let me know if they have had an EEG investigation, and if surgery was an option how did it go?
JoJo,That link is from a
Submitted by pfincher on Mon, 2015-12-28 - 12:52
JoJo,That link is from a article from 1957. They have made major strides in Temporal Lobe surgery. I am having Temporal Lobe resection in February 2016. My surgeon told me they don't perform Lobectomys anymore. They only remove the smallest portion as possible (usually the Hippocampus) to remove the seizure focus. I have talked to multiple people that have had this and they all have come out better than they where before surgery.