Finally! an up to date study on DBS "occurances"
 

Sorry I cannot capture the URL, but it should be easy enough to find in their site.(E-move) <emovenews@wemove.org>

It was about what I expected, save the 2% speech issues rate. That's down quiite a bit from the 35% rate in 2002. hardware issues and infection renained at 1% and 2 % respectively.

There is a book out by my dear friend, Sandy Cline, named:

I Shaved My Head for This?? (PublishAmerica.com)

I have not read it but it tells of her harrowing experience with a bad surgeon. She and Michael Koontz used the same "surgeon"and were treated to a torture session in the OR and both had post-op infections necessitating remmoving their hardware. He also missed thehir STN in sounds like. IF this doesn't sour you on the idea of your "neighborhood neurosurgeon" doing your DBS-STN, I do not know what will!!! There are only a few surgeons who CONSISTANTLY get good results!! One MUST do their homework, and ask the rght questions.

A properly done DBS is PAINLESS and has a 96% chance of working, if I interpeted the new statistiics properly. It was a study of 1154 DBS'ers, so it should be fairly representative of the "real world"

Hindsight being what it is, I feel that I had a great surgery team. Problem is that I took a great deal of time and care selecting the surgical team and did not do any reseach on the equipment being installed and the programming team. That was a major error on my part, and it is costing me dearly.