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Which surgery?

Thu, 07/27/2017 - 21:22
Hi everyone, I've had epilepsy for over a year and the medications that I have tried do not work, or don't work very well (I've had 11 seizures and am on my 4th medication). I am going to have surgery to try and help stop my seizures; the only problem is, I can't decide which surgery to get. I am eligible for both the VNS and brain surgery. Does anyone know if the brain surgery is a "the higher the risk, the higher the reward" situation? Also, does one surgery have a better success rate than the other? Thanks so much!

Comments

interesting4 medications and

Submitted by just_joe on Fri, 2017-07-28 - 18:53
interesting4 medications and only 11 seizures.Without knowing how long you were in those medications a person doesn't know if the dosages had been increased or decreased. It means we are not able to tell if you had tried them and stopped the medications because you had a side effect that would have gone away after your body had gotten the therapeutic levels built in your body that your neurologist wanted reached.In order to find out if the medications are working at the therapeutic levels you need to be on the therapeutic level for about 3 months. I you have a seizure after that the dosage can be raised to a higher level which would take 3 weeks and then you have another 3 months to find out if that level is high enough. If you gain weight or your body changes during that time that too needs to be looked at.You should be talking to your neurologist and asking them which would be best and which is safest. 

What kind of brain surgery?

Submitted by RTLEmum on Fri, 2017-10-13 - 10:53
What kind of brain surgery? What odds of success are they giving you with both? Some epilepsy surgeries do not carry much of a risk for memory loss or cognition loss and the complication rate for brain surgery is surprisingly low. I think the risk of brain surgery is more about the piece they are cutting out and what the rest of your brain can or cannot do without that piece, but honestly, if you are already having chronic seizures in that part of your brain, it's probably not functioning that great anyway. I'm not a doctor and I know zero about the VNS, but if brain surgery can fix the problem with little downside, I think I would go for it rather than deal with the VNS. You might ask the surgeon whether if the surgery does not work, whether you could get the VNS. Of course, the idea of people going into your head two times versus one is horrible. It might be a way for you to cover both bases. Of course, hopefully, the initial surgery would be a success. 

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