Vagus Nerve Stimulation surgery, a last-ditch effort to operate seizures, stirs up a controversy surrounded by those who have the gismo implanted. Many patients love the relief from uncontrollable seizures. However, many other patients hate the side-effects caused by the surgical operation and the devise.
Up to 70 percent of habitancy could have their seizures controlled with prescription drugs. For the remaining 30 percent, surgical operation may be an option. Epilepsy surgical operation has many distinct 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 trip 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 increase inhibitory levels. Patients record that Vns reduces the number, length, severity of seizures, and the length of recovery time after seizures. Some record improved ability of life. "It has been roughly 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 foremost 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 urgency treatment with electrical charges used to restore normal heart rhythm to patients in cardiac arrest.
Copyright © 2005 Jeanette J. Fisher. All ownership reserved.
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