Nervous about surgery!

I was diagnosed with right temporal lobe seizures 12 years ago. I am 32 now and actually believe I may have had them in my teenage years as well. My original EEG showed right temporal "slowing" and my MRI was normal. My seizures are hard to describe and always/only occur while I am trying to fall asleep or while I am sleeping. I will usually have an aura like a strange smell (amonia or smoke) sometimes a metalic taste in my mouth and a rising feeling in my stomach (not sure how else to describe it). I never lose conciousness, it may last just a few seconds but when its over I am quite disoriented and confused.

I have taken a couple different medications over the years. I now take Lamictal 600mg. Although there is a significant decrease in my seizures I have never been seizure free. I just had an appt with my neuro and we talked about the possibility of surgery. Evidently TLS are very hard to eliminate with medications. Meds will usually decrease the amount but not treat. I still have prob 5 or so a month which is a significant decrease but because of the medication side effects and so on I am very interested in surgery. I just had another MRI which again was normal.

Has anyone had surgery for rt temporal lobe seizures?

What does it consist of? Testing? Mapping?

How long was the surg? Pain after? Complications? How long was your hospital stay?

Are you seizure free and off medications?

Any memory problems? Speech problems?

Where did you have your surgery done? Surgeon?

I welcome and would appreciate any information.  Thanks for reading.

Katy

I had my surgery 5 weeks ago. I had all the basic tests, MRI, EEG, EKG all that good stuff before I decided on the surgery. My surgery experience is as follows. Day before have an MRI and put a PICC line in. The morning of the first surgery I met again with the surgeon and headed off. I was in the OR for about 6 hours. They put a mapping grid on the surface of my brain with two electrodes penetrating my brain, one going into the hippocampus and the other into the amygdala. They put me cold turkey from my meds and I was admitted to the EMU (epilepsy monitoring unit). I had 2 seizures about 1 day after and they picked up all the information from the grid and wires. One week later I had a second surgery where they went in and took out part of my right temporal lobe, my right hippocampus, and my right amygdala. That surgery lasted about 6 hours as well. The pain was pretty debilitating but they gave me the good stuff so it wasn't too bad. :P I left the hospital 3 days later. As Michael said it took me until about last week to be able to comfortably sleep on my right side. Pain wasn't too bad, nothing that a Vicodin and Tylenol couldn't solve. I have had 0 side effects which is very strange to think about. Some side effects that my doctor informed me of was, vision loss in the upper outside corners in your peripheral vision with it going away in about 5 weeks but could also be permanent. That side effect is not a huge deal because you rarely use that part of your vision. Spatial memory loss is another example of something that could happen. An example of that is not being able to recognize celebrities on a magazine in the checkout line, so again not a huge deal. You can experience a minor stroke as well. Still seizure free and will be meeting with the neurologist next November to start weening me off my meds. I had my surgery done at UPMC Presbyterian hospital in Pittsburgh, PA by Doctor Mark Richardson. Great guy and excellent surgeon, he does about 2 of these surgeries a month!! No speech or balance problems, nothing, it kinda freaks me out a little that I have no problems but I'm not complaining. I suggest doing it but get as much info as you can before hand. Good luck!!

Signed,
Mr. Fumbles