They don’t warn you enough…
I’m now closing in on my second year with DBS. I passed my 1st Anniversary in December of 2004. It was a pivotal moment for me. To grasp the fact that I had an implantable device was simply daunting to understand on a personal level. Now Year 2 was coming around. And I was questioning whether I was making any headway with the device and programming. I felt somewhat disillusioned about the entire process. No one had warned me about the blasted headaches, overstimulation effects, programming frequency, waxing and waning of settings, antitheft detector warnings before the actual surgery. May be they did , but I didn’t hear it at the time ? I just read a Reuters’ Report , published today, that DBS could cause paranoia and other mental processing effects. The case had been focused on a young woman with epilepsy. I really didn’t care whether the case focused on epilepsy or any other disease. What caught my attention was that researchers had noted that the device could cause mental issues- possible effects that I doubt were being recognized by science. Hey - Scientists listen up - listen to your patients when they tell you about cognitive effects. I could tell that the past 6 months I did not feel like the same person I was a year ago or in my 1st year of DBS. I was becoming a person who I did not recognize. Is anyone else feeling the same ?
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