Monday, October 17, 2005

Dr. Kabbani sez...

...that Alice is still having the epileptiform readings on her EEG, but that they are slightly changed. There are still long periods of time when she's in almost continual seizing, but then there are periods where there's normal EEG readings as well. She is already on the highest dose of Lamictal possible for her weight, and she is also taking a high dose of Keppra. He wants to back the Keppra down and add Zonegran instead, to see if that will help the visual disturbances subside.

He said that he normally doesn't just treat the EEG, meaning that if everything else is fairly stable, but she's got a wacky EEG, he's inclined to leave it alone. But he is not totally certain that the visual aura thing that she frequently experiences are due to actual seizures or if they're just a result of her brain damage. If the auras are not alleviated by this next kind of med, then we'll probably just chalk it up to brain damage and leave it be.

And that's where we're at. He says that the diagnosis of "Lennox-Gastaut" is somewhat misleading... that her epilepsy is not the usual manifestation of LGS, but that it IS "intractable epilepsy" with extremely frequent seizing, so it technically qualifies for that diagnosis. He doesn't say anything about the degenerative nature of it, but I think that's just because he doesn't really know.

She's still her happy little self, as usual. At least all this strong medication hasn't turned her into a drowsy slug or a rotten brat... now THAT would be more than I could bear!

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