Vagus Nerve Stimulation surgery, a last-ditch exertion to operate seizures, stirs up a controversy surrounded by those who have the expedient implanted. Many patients love the relief from unruly seizures. However, many other patients hate the side-effects caused by the surgical operation and the devise.
Up to 70 percent of people could have their seizures controlled with prescribe drugs. For the remaining 30 percent, surgical operation may be an option. Epilepsy surgical operation has many different variations; temporal lobe resection, extratemporal cortical resection, and corpus callosal section.
Besides these radical surgeries, Vagus or Vagal Nerve Stimulation surgical operation (Vns) implants a Vns pulse generator under the skin of the chest in a surgically created pocket. The electrode is tunneled subcutaneously from a neck incision. The Vns uses electrical pulses delivered to the vagus nerve in the neck which tour up into the brain. The vagus nerve has very few pain receptors and therefore provides a good pathway to deliver signals to the brain.
No one knows why the Vns reduces seizures. Proponents believe that persistent Vns causes changes in brain chemistry that may cut excitatory amino acids and/or growth inhibitory levels. Patients article that Vns reduces the number, length, severity of seizures, and the length of recovery time after seizures. Some article improved capability of life. "It has been almost three years since my Vns, and the only thing I would have changed is that I would have had it about ten years earlier than I did."
However, one prominent thing doctors forget to tell you before they implant the Vns in a ,000 surgery: If you have a heart attack, you can not be treated with an self-operating external defibrillator (Aed). Patients with Vns cannot receive emergency treatment with electrical charges used to restore general heart rhythm to patients in cardiac arrest.
Copyright © 2005 Jeanette J. Fisher. All proprietary reserved.
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