The end of a six-year-long ordeal for boy

March 04, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:32 am IST - CHENNAI:

a new beginning:Sai Rithish, seen here with his parents, is now in LKG —Photo: K. Pichumani

a new beginning:Sai Rithish, seen here with his parents, is now in LKG —Photo: K. Pichumani

It is only now, almost a year-and-a-half after their son’s surgery, that life is nearly normal for K.R. Sethuraman and his wife Muthulakshmi.

For six years, the couple had to watch their son Sai Rithish who has epilepsy, go through seizures and not respond well enough to anti-epileptic drugs.

“In April 2012, he was referred to us,” said S. Dinesh Nayak, head of the neurology department at Fortis Malar, speaking at a press meet recently. Doctors first tried changing his drug regimen, but this worked only temporarily. And MRI brain scan revealed that a large part of the child’s right hemisphere was diseased.

“This caused an electrical storm in his brain, leading to the seizures,” said Ravi Mohan Rao, consultant neurosurgeon at the hospital.

“By July 2013, his seizures were occurring every day and lasted 15-25 minutes,” said Dr. Nayak. It was then that doctors decided to operate.

In September 2013, a surgery was performed to disconnect the entire diseased right hemisphere of the brain from the left. 17 months later, doctors claim he has not had a single seizure. “He is now in LKG and his speech too is better,” said Dr. Nayak.

Doctors said about 6 million people in India suffer from epilepsy, with Tamil Nadu accounting for 60,000 patients, and Chennai, about 7,500 patients.

“About 20 per cent of them do not respond well to drugs. We want to spread the message that surgery is a viable option for some of these patients,” said Dr. Nayak.

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