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My surgery also resulted in memory and processing improvements
Epilepsy & Seizures | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (10)Comment receiving replies
That’s interesting. During a follow up visit I asked the surgeon how much brain tissue he removed. He held one hand and held the index finger and longest finger together. Then wrapped his other hand around the two fingers leaving the top two knuckles of the fingers exposed. Saying that much. I said that looks like a lot. If you removed that from the memory part of the brain, how did I not lose memories. He explained “long ago your brain recognized the damage and didn’t put memory there”.
So I’m curious as to why that same area on your brain, causing seizures is also actively useful for motor function.
And to answer your medication question I still take the same dose of meds. Which was higher than I took before. When I started having seizures at 49 they upped my meds 3 times (after each of 3 seizures). I thought my mental deficits were because of the meds doping me. But it wasn’t. When the damaged spot was removed I experienced all the improvements regardless of the meds. They said staying on the meds is an insurance policy.
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@restisaweapon
Good Morning!
This is very interesting what your doctor said to you, thank you for sharing here with us. So, according to your doctor, you probably did put your memory on the left side of your temporal lobe because of your sclerosis on the right side of it. But this seemed not to work well as you had cognitive problems. So, by removing your sclerosis on your right temporal lobe, this part of the brain worked again properly, even though a part of it was removed.
What my neurosurgeon explained to me is that surgery on the left side of my hippocampus is a very risky one, because of the functions of the hippocampus on this side. It is recommended when it is a large sclerosis and mine is a very small one. There would be a high chance of cognitive impairment and loss of my verbal capacity. And I would be still dependent on AED, which do no good to me (I treat my epilepsy with medical cannabis, trigger management and diets). So I have learned to live with my cognitive decrease and adapted to it.
What I am still triggered is why this cognitive impairment just started after I was 47 years old, though I have had my epilepsy since I am a teenager? I have lived with epilepsy without knowing it until 2019 when I was 48 years old and I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Up to that time, I had a normal life, went to university, had my masters, worked in large companies, etc. My seizures up to that time were partial ones, rare, very mild, being out of myself just for very few seconds. But in 2017, seizures became stronger and my epilepsy started to show its face, starting to have some cognitive problems. When I asked my epileptologist why this happen all of a sudden, he answered to me that this was a result of untreated epilepsy for over 30 years. But I am still not very convinced with this answer, as he said that the size of my sclerosis (caused in an accident) remained unchanged all over those years. And from my studying, the sclerosis is the cause of the cognitive impairment people with epilepsy have. So, if I always had this sclerosis since my accident and lived without having cognitive problems for very long.
@restisaweapon, did you always had cognitive problems? Or did they start all of a sudden like it happened to me? I would very pleased if you and others in our group could share their cognitive problems with me. Did those problems appeared right after having epilepsy or did they start after some years living with epilepsy?
Thank you all!
Wishing you a nice Sunday!
Chris (@santosha)