VNS Presentation

Christa and I went to Dr. Dean's office to see a presentation on the VNS Therapy. We got to meet several people who currently had the VNS devices implanted. The effacacy of the device varied between the three people. A man, whose seizures most matched mine, was now completely seizure free. A woman, whose seizures were fairly similar to mine, now had a reduced number. Another woman, whose seizures did not match mine, did not have much improvement from the device, although she did indicate that it helped with recovery after a seizure. These results are consistant with the clinical trials conducted for FDA approval of the devices.

Although each of them had different experiences with the device, all of them indicated that they would stay on the treatment and would have a new device implaned once the old one ran out of battery power.

The devices are quite small. and you could not see the wires in their necks. The man had the oldest model of the device and it protruded quite far from his chest. The newer models are much smaller and are less visible. The Model 102 is 5.5 centimeters in diameter and 7 millimeters thick; it weighs about 25 grams.

After the presentation, I told Dr. Dean that I would like to have an MRI and Ambulatory E.E.G. before I decided on whether to get such an implant. She scheduled them, I will be having them in the next few days.