They cut one square they didnt take pieces for me. About 2/2 inches. I had two resections, in 2011 and 2016, so they just took the square out. I have four screws, one on each corner i believe. I can feel the two at the top very prominently, its at my hairline and at the top of my head in the back so its hard not to. I cant feel the bottom two really, its hard to find them but when i do i have to push down to really feel them. They didn’t shave my head, but i have seen people who they have, if they want to id ask if they can just move your hair out the way. My surgeries were both on my left hippocampus and surrounding areas, if its your hippocampus id be careful if they ask for a second because the 1st doesnt work, my short term memory is working less than half lol. Ill sit for a couple minutes trying to think of a word, describe it to you, what it sounds like, etc. ill give up then jump a foot in the air 5 mins later because i remember the word i was trying to guess, and forget why i was trying to figure it out at all, but my moms memory is ehh too so were like well sh*t. 😂

I was so scared before mine and had so many questions I was embarassed to ask. Feel free to ask me any questions you have. And if you read my story please dont be discouraged because my seizures came back. I have Lupus and I think that has everything to do with my seizures returning. They are not as violent as before and I was seizure free for 4 years. I also became friends with two others who had the same surgery and they both are still seizure free. Praying it works perfectly for you!!!

I had it to see if I was a candidate for brain surgery before I got the VNS and this was 10 or more years ago so I don't know if its done the same but my skull was cut into 5 small pieces so I could have electrodes placed into certain areas of my brain to see where my sezuires were coming from and after this was done I had my skull sticked back together and stapled back into place and held tightly together with a heavy bandage around my head for a week in the recovery room. My whole time during surgery and in recovery I felt nothing but while still recovering back home I could feel the stitches and staples in my head were it had been cut and for a few weeks to a month a had terrible itching and irritated areas were I had been cut and although it was safe for me to wash my head the glue was somewhat still there making it worse to wash my head. I had 9 industrial size stainless steel staples down the middle of my head wich were the worse to be taken out with hospital pliers and it was about a couple months or 3 for my scars to start to heal and 4 months for them to completely heal themselves up.

My resection was ten years ago so they probably do things a little different now but I had no screws. I thought recovery was better than I had worried it would be. Mine was right temporal lobe so I was cut on the right side of my head. The scars on the outside itched a lot while they were healing and yes it was quite painful to lay on that side or anything but I coulnt really feel where the bone was removed and put back. It just felt really numb and tingly if I touched it for a long time after.
The bones just heal themselves back together like if you broke a bone.
I dont know how long it took but the bones heal well and quicker than you think. If you move my hair you can barely see the scars now. Just thin white lines in my skull. No one would ever know I had brain surgery. Even the hair grew back pretty fast.
Best of luck to you!!! 💜🙏💜

@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member, they just cut a square and put the wires on for me, i never heard them say they were stapling it but they probably did,i was wrapped M-F and friday to get the surgery, the same the second time but they went back in during the week to add more electrodes. I had a badass migraine idk how you felt nothing, all i did was sleep for like 3 weeks in the hospital, im guessing 3wks but i was young lol. I still had a migraine at home too though, when i was in the hospital they had this sock thing on the wires and i used it to cover my eyes and sleep lol. I didnt have any stitches and idk how you had 9 staples, my mom and i counted mine and i had about 42 lol. No glue for me either, i couldnt wash till the staples were out and that was probably a month im guessing. You sound like you didnt have a resection but a corpus callostomy if your staples were down the middle?

Mentioned Users

A MyEpile...