Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Deacon's Latest EEG



Deacon after his recent EEG

Deacon had an EEG back in February to see how he was responding to the change in prescription to Valproic Acid and B6. His neurologist and I have been playing phone tag for the past couple of weeks, so when I was in the area today picking up Deacon's B6 prescription (we have to special order it from a compounding pharmacy near his office, about 30 minutes away), I decided to stop by and at least get a copy of the report to hold us over until we can talk.

With a year of neurological research under my belt, I am definitely no professional, but have come to understand a lot of what is written in the reports. Before I share the results, here are parts of his previous EEG's. They are pretty wordy, so I tried to summarize, paraphrase, and define as much as possible.

January 17, 2011
Patient with abnormal EEG. No evidence of occipital rhythm, indicating disturbance in cerebral function (reason for his vision problems). In addition, there is 3-4 hz high-voltage slow wave activity (high voltage & slow wave is the worst to have) mixed with spike and sharp wave activity in occipital (vision) and temporal (speech/memory) regions. Epilepsy diagnosed.

October 5, 2011
This EEG is very abnormal because of multifocal spike wave discharge (seizure activity in multiple parts of the brain), but mostly in the left-mid temporal lobe (speech/memory). Poorly organized, not well-sustained, medium-voltage (5-6 hz) activity (which means some improvement b/c medium voltage is better than high voltage) seen symetrically. No clear focal slowing seen (also better).

February 18, 2012
Well organized, well sustained 7-8 hz (see how the number is getting bigger each time, that is good) activity seen symetrically. Sleep stages normal. This is a NORMAL awake and asleep EEG!!

Again, I haven't talked to the neurologist about his impression, but the report looks optimistic. Praise God!

Will update again when I get more information.

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