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Peripheral Vision Loss and Other Side Effects of Occipital Lobe Surgery
Sun, 06/30/2013 - 09:47Topic: Surgery and Devices
I'd like to know if anyone out there can speak from experience to the side effects of occipital lobe surgery for epilepsy. In particular, did you experience peripheral vision loss? If so, what does it look like/feel like? We are considering this option for our son, and would very much appreciate hearing from others who have had this surgery.
My name is Michael and when I
Submitted by Romasantam on Thu, 2017-03-23 - 21:01
My name is Michael and when I was 21 I began to start having symptoms of epilepsy. I have had 3 grand Mal seizures in my lifetime, 2 occurred after surgery. The cause of my epilepsy was a malformation of blood vessels known as a hermangioma. My whole life this went undetected....I remember the first "seizure" quite vividly (Up until the point I passed out). I was watching t.v in my basement and all of a sudden strange lights started to appear in peripheral. I can describe these lights as almost.... Angelic. I thought I was having a vision or something because I had never thought this would happen to me. The lights are colors that can't be normally seen with the human eye is the best I can start to describe. The seem to have a life of their own. Whizzing past me, doing unique patterns and unusual dances. At first I began to play with it, I for some reason thought it was external. Mind you I have never done any hallucinagenic drugs in my life so I had no clue what was going on.... At first it was small but then it grew larger and began to take up my whole vision, I knew something was horribly wrong when I closed my eyes and still saw the lights doing their dance.All in all the point being is I had a surgery that was recommended by my neurologist. The surgery lasted 8 hours, the recovery time 2 weeks. The brain reacts very negatively to this change. I had horrific night terrors the likes of which I had never and have never since experienced. Ever since the surgery I have seen a small "blip" in my bottom left peripheral. It never goes away and during partial seizures the lights come back although I have not had a grand Mal since. I have an MRI tomorrow perhaps I'll post tomorrow.My advice: this is scary, the auras are scary but life is short and we all have to be brave. Trust your doctors and trust your intuition. Keep a positive attitude and use this as a way to see life in a greater light