I haven't been been on much the last year and half.
So I missed that post.
Was it her neurologist that figured it out?
We are truly happy for you guys.
Her neurologist has been recommending it for years, but she was afraid of surgery.
However at the end of '21 she had a lot of lady problems that turned out to be a benign growth in her uterus.
My mom died of uterus cancer in' 19. So this freaked us out & she went ahead and got the hysterectomy because the OBGYN was recommending it too now.
The link between the lady parts and the brain, (my recollection from when it was explained to me by the neurologist over ten years ago) , is an interaction between estrogen and the epilepsy medication. Estrogen prevents the medication from working.
A woman's monthly cycle involves estrogen level spikes. More estrogen = less effective anticonvulsive medication.
Prior to the hysterectomy, since the stroke she had in I kept logs of her seizures & her cycles along with 4x daily blood pressures. Almost all of her seizures were just before & after the cycles.
I'm pretty sure the ovaries produce or somehow regulate the estrogen, but removal of them triggers instant menopause.
So they removed everything except the ovaries.
This stops the monthly cycles, but doesn't get rid of the estrogen.
But without the cycles, there's no spikes in the levels.
Suddenly the medication works as intended.
Zero seizures since May of last year, except for one short, mild one the day after the neurologist lowered one of her meds about 6 months after the hysterectomy.
As it's been going, she can probably go to a drivers ed school.
But because her epilepsy required her to be pampered like a child until the age of 43, she can't just suddenly jump into a normal life. As far as basic life skills go, she's like an adolescent. I have to teach her tons & tons of stuff. She's never been able to work with or around anything sharp, hot, etc.
But yeah, her quality of life has still vastly improved.
Her seizures didn't start until she was 15.
She used to like to climb trees with me and her brothers back then.
Last summer when we started realizing how long it had been since her last seizure, and the first thing she wanted to do was climb a tree.
I started letting her ride my minibike around the yard and we ended up getting her one. (I made mine fast, and she's a complete rookie so I wanted her to have a slow one to learn on.)
But she's getting there. Soon I'll be able to make hers fast too, and we can go on long rides on the farm roads.
