Anyone here have a VNS, or a child with one?

Not a VNS, but we're a medtronic family, so to speak. My ds has a baclofen implant pump, and my DH has DBS.

We have quite a few friends whose kids use VNS with great success -- like going from a crazy 200+ seizures a day to a handful a month. How's your son's doing? I have a friend who is a sometimes pea whose son has one. If you wanted to connect with another family, she would probably be willing to chat, though I don't think she chose to sign in over here yet.

Is battery life pretty much like the other devices-- 5 years +/- ? My son's gone through a battery replacement once, and has another in a year and a half-- actually was very easy surgery, compared to the original placement.

My son has profound cerebral palsy which causes extremely tight muscles all the time -- the baclofen pump implant reduces that. He's had his since he was 4, and it's been a life changer for him. I hear you re. the puberty issues-- he never had seizures until puberty-- but we're lucky in that his are still quite mild and well managed with medications.

In my DH case, he parkinson's disease, and the DBS almost resets his disease process by 8 to 10 years.

Medtronic seems to manage their devices well, but it's just a matter of time until some competition comes up. I know when my son had his replaced, we asked if he could have the old one for show and tell (plus, cause it's cool) but they were very cagey about how they would have to remove all proprietary elements from it-- they were supposed to process it and send it back to us, but I guess that's not happening since it's been, what, 4 years now? LOL -- I don't really care, but keeping it secret is probably key to keeping that corner on the market.