Surgeries on epileptics

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NaderH

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I have heard that patients who are undergoing surgery can have seizures. Does this limit what can be done when it comes to surgery for them? A heart surgery could be an example of such a situation. This is just for general interest.
 
I had a left temporal lobectomy and was seizure free for 14 months. When the seizures returned, they came back with vengeance. They did more testing and it revealed that more scar tissue was deep in the brain and if they did more surgery, I would end up like an advanced stage Alzheimer patient, losing all memory permanently. Therefore, it did limit what could be done as far as surgery.
My memory is bad from the 1st surgery anyway.
 
Hi, Nader,

I had some surgery lately (not brain surgery) and asked my epi this same question beforehand. He told me the anesthesia prevents seizures from happening during the surgery, so I had nothing to worry about. Anesthesia is what they used to use to stop status epilepticus in the old days before they had better drugs.

Now after a person comes out of the anesthesia, that's a different matter. They can happen then. After surgery I was extremely nauseous and just threw up my AEDs. That meant I missed several doses and I felt horrid. Auras on and off almost constantly, headache that was the worst of my life, seizures galore. It all settled down after about 4 days, though, when I was keeping my meds down and they'd had time to build up in my system again.
 
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I've also had numerous other surgeries done, several due to accidents from TC seizures. I was burned several times and had to have several debridement surgeries before the skin grafts, therefore was put under anesthesia. I've lost count of how many times I've had to be "put under" due to accidents, female problems, and then the brain surgery. It didn't make me sick, just very, very tired.

Here's a link on the subject:
http://professionals.epilepsy.com/page/drugs_surgery.html
 
I had to have ACL reconstruction done back in March and had no complications.
 
Thanks for this question!! I was wondering the same thing and was going to ask my neuro. I am having a Gastric Sleeve done in the next 4 - 5 months and this was one of the first things that came to my mind :D
 
I'm having dental surgery where they need to remove a small bit of my jaw bone, but they said it would be too risky under general anaesthetic, so i have to be sedated instead.

I'm more worried about being sedated than knocked out cold lol.
 
Hi NaderH,
I've been dealing with epilepsy for over 18 years now and in that time I've had 2 wrist surgeries, 2 Vagus Nerve Stimulator surgeries (1 was to replace the battery) and I am going to have an invasieve EEG/ epilepsy surgery in december. Now I tell you all this because my epilepsy has never been a factor in preventing me from surgery. What you may want to discuss with your neuro doc and surgen is the subject of pain killers used after surgery...I know that morphine mixed with my epilepsy causes me to have seizures so its on my allergy list. hope this helped some....sorry if I seemed to ramble on.
 
You don't ramble ,you scramble!What are ya a quarter back?It's my turn to get the vns. I have had the crainiotomy. I am so sick of this stuff.But lessons to learn.
 
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