An estimated 2.3 million adults nationwide have epilepsy, and in a third of them, seizures are not controlled by drugs. Brain surgery can relieve seizures completely, but many patients aren’t candidates because their seizures start in parts of the brain that can’t be removed, such as those needed for language or memory.

Without treatment options, people with intractable epilepsy often find it difficult to hold jobs or to find spouses. They can suffer repeated injuries from falls and burns; their mortality rate is two to three times higher than that of the general population. “There are people out there who are just desperate for the next treatment,” said Janice Buelow, the vice president of research for the Epilepsy Foundation.

With his neurostimulator, Mr. Ramsey, who is partial to ice fishing and wisecracks, is living on his own in a patched-up trailer heated by an indoor wood stove. Inside is the mounted head of a deer he shot. He drives his purple Ford Ranger to appointments at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Lately, he’s started to look for part-time work. But he’s cautious. “Because of my epilepsy, a lot of people don’t want to take the risk,” he said.

His treatment has been more successful than most. In a randomized clinical trial of 191 people at 32 sites, patients received stimulators but did not know whether they were activated or not. Those with stimulators activated reported a 38 percent reduction in seizures over three months, compared to a 17 percent decrease among those whose stimulators were not, according to the results published in Neurology. Over two years, 90 subjects with the devices turned on experienced a 50 percent or greater reduction in seizures.

Until he received a stimulator in 2008, Andrew Stocksdale, 32, of Mansfield, Ohio, experienced up to 20 seizures a day. By contrast, in the past month, he’s had three. He is now married, holds a full-time job, and has a newborn son.

“My life fell together like a jigsaw puzzle,” Mr. Stocksdale said. “I was afraid to have a son before. I couldn’t do things. I was afraid of falling. I couldn’t hold him.”