For 30 per cent of the hundreds of thousands of people in Canada who have epilepsy, medications don't end the seizures. But for some of these patients, there is a treatment -- in some cases a cure -- through surgery.
Adam Cunningham of Burlington, Ont., is one of those who has benefited from the surgery.
For years, Cunningham's life had been constrained by unpredictable attacks that leave him unable to live a normal life. Adam couldn't hold a job, he couldn't go out alone.
"I was having as many as 10 a day and I felt like somebody was bashing my head in with a baseball bat," he remembers.
For Adam, the seizures began when he was just eight years old. But he didn't know what they were for years.
His attacks were always small and subtle. He would lose awareness and appear dazed and confused and not remember the incident later. That's why, as 麻豆影视 reported last fall, for 22 years, doctors missed the diagnosis.
Dr. Peter Carlen of Toronto Western Hospital says that most people think of epilepsy causing grand mal seizures, in which a patient jerks uncontrollably. But in fact, the more common type of epileptic seizures are partial seizures, in which a patient becomes a little confused or notices a funny smell or a funny taste.
"A doctor can easily diagnose epilepsy if a patient presents us with a history of a grade mal seizure where they are shaking all over, but it is a lot harder -- even for us who specialize in the disease -- to make the diagnosis of epilepsy when they are having these small seizures," says Dr. Carlen.
Even after being diagnosed and starting medication, the seizures didn't stop for Adam.
Dr. Taufik Valiente of the Krembil Neuroscience Centre in Toronto says there are some seizures that are resistant to certain medications.
"Those are the kinds of epilepsy that are best treated by surgery," he says.
But not all patients can be helped with surgery. The best surgical candidates have seizures arising from a single location and from an area of the brain that is relatively "silent", meaning that the seizure focus can be safely and completely removed.
To his surprise, Adam discovered, he discovered that he would make a good candidate for surgery.
In December, doctors at Toronto Western Hospital surgically removed two small pieces of Adam's brain in the hope that they could interrupt the circuits that cause the seizures. The areas showed severe scarring and the doctors believed that's from where the seizures arose.
There was a one to two per cent chance the operation would leave him paralyzed or with some other long-lasting complication, but an 80 per cent chance the seizures would be gone, with no side effects. For Adam, the odds were in his favour and the surgery worked. His seizures are gone.
"They stopped. I haven't had one since. I've had none. It's incredible," Adam says. "I feel great. I can't believe the difference already. I thought it would take a lot longer to feel better."
"I feel like I have been reborn... this allows me to start having a life."
His mother, Sharon Cunningham, says she no longer worries about her son the way she used to.
"I hope that people who see this...will have some hope they can be helped," she says.
Doctors think some there are some 20,000 people with epilepsy in Canada who could also benefit from surgery. Yet only about 300 get the operation each year, says Dr. Valiente.
"There's a lack of knowledge at every level: at the level of the individual who gets epilepsy, at the level of the practitioners who deal with them, in that they are not aware that surgery is an option."
For patients with seizures that arise from multiple sites in the brain, the results are often not as good. These patients may nevertheless obtain a worthwhile improvement with an operation, doctors say.
Three months later, Adam can go out in public without the fear of having a seizure.
For more information on whether you or someone you know could be a candidate for this surgery, please contact the Canadian Epilepsy Alliance at 1-866-EPILEPSY.
With a report from CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip
