Question: My grandson, 24, has had petit mal seizures since age 2 and taken Dilantin and others medications over the years. A VNS was implanted several years ago. It helped but doesn't seem to be as effective at this time. He also has severe disc problems in his back. To treat the increasing back pain they have gradually increased his medication until he is now on 100 mcgrm patches (every three days) of Fentynal, plus Methadone, Oxycontin, Oxycodin, Klonipin, Gaba something, and more. They then decided to reduce his pain meds so he could have another back surgery (this would be the 4th one) His seizures changed within hours of the reduction and immediately started to increase in severity. They are now like partial seizures from what I have read. The Psychiatrist said she thinks they are Psycho-genic non epileptic seizures but other doctors don't think so. She wants him to transition to other drugs and get off the Opioids. With the back issue the jerking motion of the seizures greatly increases the back pain. They say he has 3 ruptured discs in his back but can't do an MRI due to the VNS. In the last 2 weeks he has been in Memorial Hospital in L.B. for 3 days and released with the instructions to increase Fentynal to 150 and Cedars Siani in L.A. for 5 days with a not so sure what we should do decision. If you have ANY suggestions for us please send them. We are getting desperate.
Thank you for all you do,
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