The Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) has helped many people minimize their seizure activity. Blake’s Story is a true tale of how the VNS has helped this little boy.
Blake Zika was born September 13, 1991, a healthy 8lb. 8oz. boy. I had no complications during pregnancy. Thanksgiving Day, about a month after Blake turned 4 he had a grand-mal seizure. Blake was rushed to the hospital, and after having many tests, (spinal tap, CT scan, blood work, MRI), he was diagnosed with having viral Encephalitis.
Blake stayed for about 4 weeks at CHOC, (Children’s Hospital of Orange County). Blake was put on Phenobarbital, Tegretol, and Dilantin. Blake still had seizures the time he was in the hospital even on a lot of medications. Blake had a few EEG’s in the hospital, they all showed seizure activity through out the whole brain, more seizure activity while he was asleep.
After leaving the hospital, Blake was not having many seizures. Blake would mostly have a s seizure with a high fever. His life was pretty normal compared to his 3 brothers, he was a little more active then his brothers, I always use to blame it on the medications. He swims, boogie boards at the beach, plays roller hockey, most boy activities.
One night about 2 years after he was diagnosed with seizures (Blake has always been diagnosed with a seizure disorder, not a certain name), I went into his room about 1 hr. after he went to sleep and I found him having a partial seizure. Over the next week I kept him in my room and found that he had 1 or 2 every night. Sometimes I wondered why he was so hard to wake up in the morning to go to school.
I took Blake to Loma Linda University and met with a pediatric Neurologist, he wanted to try something else besides medications, brain surgery was not an option due to Blake having seizures on both sides of his brain. The Neurologist decided that Blake would be a good candidate for the Vagus Nerve Stimulator. On August 16, 2000 the implant was done. Surgery was done at the outpatient hospital and lasted about 1 hour. Blake was home in about 4 hours and was up playing the next morning. The VNS was activated 2 weeks later. It is activated through a lap top computer with a device that looks like a wand. They just hold it on his chest over the stimulator, and press a few things on the lap top, and that turned it on. The only side effect was a slight cough Blake made for a few seconds.
Over the next few months, Blake had to go monthly to have the VNS increased. The VNS has many different settings, like people respond to medications at different doses. It sometimes takes a while to find a setting that is best for the patient. At one point, Blake’s stimulation was set to high, meaning the stimulation was to strong for his brain, and it caused him to have a seizure. That is completely reversible. We just went in the next day and the stimulator was turned down. I saw an improvement about 3 months later. The doctor decided to start reducing Blake’s medications. Blake was up to 19 pills at the time and was having about 2 seizures a night. I still saw a slight improvement. I seem to think the VNS helped him through the withdrawal months. Blake had a bad time coming off of Tranxene, its a Benzodiazepine. He had a lot of seizures coming off of it, I was discouraged, but the doctor was certain the seizures were just withdrawal symptoms. We, of course, slowed down the process of tapering Tranxene. The seizures seemed to stop fast. When I used the magnet, I hold it and place it over the stimulator and it activated it 10 times stronger then his regular stimulation.
Blake’s VNS is now set to go off every minute and a half for 30 seconds. His voice will sometimes be hoarse when it goes off, but I don’t notice it anymore really. He is now down to 3 pills of Phenobarbital and 1/2 pill of Tranxene. The only time he has a seizure seems to be about 2 or 3 days after we reduced the Tranxene. That is much better than him having 2 seizures a day. So over all, Blake seizures are down by about 80%. The VNS sometimes takes up to two years for the best results. Blake has only had it for 11 months and all I can hope for is him improving more. In the next few months Blake’s Neurologist wants to wean him off of Phenobarbital, maybe another med will take its place but we will have to take it one day at a time. Many people have told me that Blake is a lot happier now, I feel he is not as hyper. School is getting a little better. He was been coming off so many meds over the year. I am very confident he will be doing well in school next year. We had a repeat EEG this past month. and the results were amazing. Over the month with the VNS, his EEG has improved a great deal, now he has a focal point in the front temporal lobe. He use to have seizure activity throughout this whole brain. The Neurologist is certain the VNS is the reason his EEG has improved so much. I look at it as the VNS is healing Blake’s brain.
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