25th of May, 2016
In one Children’s day twenty years ago, the classmates were all participating in the performances on the playground of the elementary school. One child suffered “convulsions” suddenly and fell on the ground, rolling his eyes and foaming at the mouth. That was the first I contacted the epileptic with his attacked. At that time, like the other children, I was full of anxiety and curiosity.The classmate was silent from then on, and later he transferred to another school.
Childhood is an unforgettable time for everyone. As I grow older, I am more able to feel the pain that the disease brought to that classmate, and more able to understand how the dark clouds of disease envelop the child’s childhood or even whole life. After working in nerve regulation area, I knew that there were nearly 10 million of epileptics in China, and more than half of them have attackin their childhood. These figures are shocking by the sight. How many children need to spend their childhood in this darkness?
Though the antiepileptic drugs have continuous development, there are still one third of the epileptics whose diseases cannot be controlled by drugs. That is called the drug intractable epilepsy, and these epileptics need to have surgical operation. However, half of them cannot get cranioctomy because of various reasons, or they would still get attack after excision of cranioctomy. For this kind of epileptics, there are about 1 million to 1.5 million people in China. At the same time, during the epileptics of infants or children, surgery is often not best choice. How to improve the therapeutic effect to help them growth? How to open a door for those flowers that still do not bloom?
Vagus stimulation method, stimulating vagus by impulsator giving emission current discontinuously, is the best treatment for these epileptics. It has many advantages, like, no need of cranioctomy, small trauma, more and more good effect as time goes by, and so on. Through years of clinical application, VNS technology became an “electron medicine”for curing epilepsy. It has been accepted by more and more doctors and patients. There are about 20 thousand surgeries of this every year.
For our country, VNS products depend on importfully and their price are very expensive. The promotion of this therapy is not good, and it is difficult for patients to accept this. In China, the VNS were only practiced in minority big cities, like Beijing, Shanghai, and so on. There are about 200 cases every year in China.
Here we welcome the coming Children’s Day, and in order to help more children with medicine intractable epilepsy, especially children in poor families, China Anti-epileptic Association works with Nerve Regulation Technology National Engineering Laboratory and Beijng Pin Chi Medical Facility Co., Ltd., combine with domestic hundreds of hospitals to hold the “Golden Ginkgo Leaf” big public welfare program together. In nationwide, we provide 300 sets of vagus nerve stimulator to children with medicine intractable epilepsy in poor families for free, and implant them in these children for free. We are aimed to help these children to improve their symptom, and open a new hope of future for them.
Mr. Li Shizhuo, the honorary chairman of China Anti-epileptic Association, used an affectionate sentence to conclude the original intention of this activity.Our wish is born of love. Our feet go forward for dreams. Hope this activity could help these children, and at the same time call the attention of the whole society to epileptic children. Let more social force join in this activity positively to succor the epileptic children. Bring warmth to these children who are enveloped by the dark clouds of disease.
