It seems that the side-effects of the Lamictal may be wearing off. He slept most of the night for 2 nights in a row now, and is actually taking a nap right now. We'll probably have to go through this every time we increase the dose, which will be weekly for quite some time. That's OK, as long as it works.
I got the bill for the VNS surgery. It was over $48,000, and that doesn't include the neurologist or anethesiologist. That is double what I was expecting. It's a good thing I have good insurance.
The VNS gets turned on tomorrow. It will start at a low setting, so we don't really expect to see any improvement right away. But, we're at least hoping that we can use the magnet to stop some clusters.
We took another step down on his diet ratio yesterday. He is now at a 1.5:1 ratio. At this point, I think it's safe to say the diet is healthy again. He gets enough fruit, veggies, cheese, etc. to satisfy him. The only thing he is missing is the sugar and grains. This is probably only slightly more restrictive than an Atkins diet. Probably in the next couple of weeks he can come off of the diet completely. The only reason I hesitate is that when I look at his seizure chart, it appears that he started getting somewhat worse as we came off the higher ratios of the diet. I'm 95% sure this was due to other circumstances (ie. Felbatol), but I cannot be completely sure. In any case, we're ramping up with 2 treatments (VNS and Lamictal) right now, so I don't want to add a 3rd variable into the mix. If nothing else works, we can give the diet another try later.
I added a link to his seizure diary on the right side (under the picture). You can scroll through the tabs on the bottom to see the graphs.
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