Virginia’s Epilepsy Epidemic
Jamie Blake, staff writer
In Virginia, the estimation of people living with epilepsy is 84,800. Dr. Nathan Fountain, neurologist at the University of Virginia, treats approximately 5,000 patients a year with epilepsy. He has been doing this since 1995, when he got his doctrine in medicine in Neurology and went on to become one of Virginia’s epilepsy specialists.
Dr. Fountain graduated from the University of Iowa and then followed his dreams, “to help people,” by doing his residency at UVA. He continued by doing fellowships under ‘‘the pioneers of epilepsy research,’’ as he liked to call them, to then earn is MD in Neurology. Dr. Fountain has been in love with the brain and trying to understand what makes humans who they are.
Dr. Fountain has achieved his goals with epilepsy through hard work and dedication and a lot of research to understand this disease. He has conducted clinical trials to understand what works best for patients who have different types of epilepsy.
There are rare forms of epilepsy that are hard to treat and manage, and there are forms that can be controlled by medicine or require surgery to completely get rid of it. He has been a pioneer in getting the Food and Drug Administration to approve the use of cannabis for treating patients with epilepsy and after four years he has succeeded.
He is currently working on a different solution, which he says, “is less invasive than having to do surgery and will use ultrasound waves and the heat generated from the waves to remove the scarring on the brain that causes the patient to seize.” This type of research is still very new, and he says he is having trouble getting people to be a part of the clinical trial, so he is not sure when this type of procedure will be available to patients.
The type of work Dr. Fountain performs is monumental to the well-being of patients who suffer from epilepsy.
If you have any other interest or questions about epilepsy, you should check out the epilepsy center at University of Virginia, which is located at 1215 Lee St.
