by JIM BERGAMO / KVUE News and photojournalist John Gusky and editor John Fisher
kvue.com
Posted on August 13, 2013 at 5:43 PM
Updated yesterday at 6:16 PM
AUSTIN -- Epilepsy patients who don't respond to medication have new hope. Specialists at Dell Children's Medical Center are the first in Central Texas to perform a new procedure that can change lives in just days, compared to months.
The thought of being rolled into an operating room for a procedure on the brain might scare most people, but not 16-year-old Keynan Martin.
"I would have went for any surgery really," said Martin. "If it changed the way it was I would have gone for it."
That's because for half his life, Martin has suffered from epilepsy -- an abnormal firing of brain cells. It can most easily be described as a short circuiting of the brain.
"It was pretty harsh," said Martin. "It changed my life."
Like 30 percent of all epilepsy patients, Martin did not respond to medication, and traditional brain surgery had its risks. "We have to be able to target an area of epilepsy," said Mark Lee, M.D., a neurosurgeon at Dell Children's Medical Center. "Epilepsy is not like a tumor where you can see it on the scan."
See the rest here:
Dell Children's laser procedure offers hope to epilepsy patients