Surgery
Even though medicine is the most common
approach to treating epilepsy, it does not always work. In almost one-third of
people with epilepsy, medicine cannot control their seizures adequately (or at
all, in some cases). This number is even higher in
people with
. Surgery can greatly improve the lives
of some people who have
.
You may be a good candidate
for surgery if your seizures:
- Occur often enough to severely disrupt your
life.
- Tend to result in injury or harm (for instance, if seizures
cause frequent falls).
- Change or alter your
consciousness.
- Are not controlled well with medicine, or you cannot
tolerate the side effects of the medicines.
Having frequent or severe seizures often restricts you from
, doing certain kinds of work, and other
activities. Medicine may fail to control these seizures. Or medicine may cause side
effects severe enough to disrupt your lifestyle.
Surgery is not an
"if all else fails" approach to treating epilepsy. It often may be a better
choice than trying each and every medicine. For
adults with
, for instance, surgery may be
considered if two different first-line medicines are tried and neither controls
the seizures adequately. For certain types of childhood epilepsy—disorders
that children cannot outgrow and that do not respond to medicine—having surgery
at the youngest possible age may offer the greatest benefit for the child. The
younger brain is more adaptable and recovers better after surgery.
Epilepsy surgery removes an area of abnormal tissue in the brain, such as
a tumor or scar tissue, or the specific area of brain tissue where seizures
begin. Before surgery, you may have several tests (including an
,
, and video
monitoring) to find exactly where seizures begin in the brain. After the
area of abnormal tissue where your seizures begin has been located, doctors can
decide whether or not it can be removed safely.
Surgery is
usually done in a hospital that is associated with an epilepsy center. The
surgery usually takes a few hours, and you have to stay in the hospital for a
few days afterward. It may be several months or more before you feel fully back
to normal.
Surgery choices
The type of epilepsy surgery depends on the location in
the brain in which seizures start.
The most common surgery is
, which is the removal of
part of one of the brain's temporal lobes. For many people with temporal lobe
epilepsy, this surgery offers a very good chance of becoming
seizure-free.