Posted by Adam on April 1, 2001, at 14:56:27
In reply to Any POSITIVE experiences with ECT?, posted by Thrud on March 31, 2001, at 16:50:43
Thrud, (interesting handle...)
I had one course of ECT a couple years ago. It worked very well, though the effects were temporary, as expected.
I had what you might say were "bad" problems with memory. They were transient, though, and really were only pronounced when it came to events the day of or shortly after the treatment. I probably had a month, give or take, of marked improvement, and less than a week of that was lost to amnesia. However, what was lost was truly lost. One remarkable example was an evening out with my parents (the hospital allowed time to leave the ward for voluntary admittees) at what was, I hear, an excellent Italian restaurant, that I have absolutely no recollection of whatsoever. It never happened, as far as I can tell (with the possible exception of a creepy experience I had strolling the North End of Boston, but that's another story...). These lapses were spotty...some things I remember very well, others are complete blanks. I kept a diary at the time, and that helped a great deal, though I find it painful to read now. For whatever reason, I didn't write down that I had gone out to dinner with my parents that night. This actually led to a small argument, because the three of us DID in fact go to an Italian restarant a few months earlier, and I thought THEY had the dates mixed up. "How could you mess up THAT with the time I was in the HOSPITAL, fercryinoutloud", etc. But I know they didn't mix things up now, and it was just one very stark example of how weird the experience of ECT-induced retrograde and anti-retrograde amnesia can be.
I tell you this for one reason: I'd do it again in a hearbeat if faced with the same dilemma I had at that time. I'm pretty sure I would have opted for it even under less dire circumstances. As one doctor once said to me, "it's the cat's pajamas." It works most of the time for most of the people who try it, the results can be fast, and often quite dramatic. It's disturbing as hell (at least for me) to think about, and I'll readily concede the memory lapses were both unnerving and disorienting. But given the alternative, there's no question: I'd do it again.
I had an intesive course of bilateral ECT. For some, especially those who get it chronically (because no other AD works for them, most likely), the deleterious effects on memory can be mitigated to some degree (perhaps even a great degree) by limited consecutive sessions and unilateral, instead of bilateral, seizures. You might, for instance, get a one to two week long course of bilateral ECT, maybe upwards of ten or more sessions in a row, after which I would be willing to bet you would have memory difficulties. If you responded well, your doctors then might perform a monthly maintainance treatment, perhaps unilateral. It is conceivable that this could be enough to relieve you of depression to a satisfactory degree with minimal associated memory loss.
ECT is scary, and I fear some of my apprehensions about it, both before and after, could have contributed to an overly pessimistic view of the procedure. Pessimism is an easy thing to succumb to when depressed, so I would like to stress two points: Yes, it can be weird, and frightening, whatever doctors may say. Yes, it's also worth it. When doing the cost-benefit analysis, I'd say the scales tip heavily in favor of the benefits. For me, it worked that well, and I think the only reason I did not continue with it was because I had some other ideas about what I might try, having never opted for an MAOI (namely, I had it in the back of my mind that, when I was able to qualify, I might try a clinical trial, which turned out to be a very good decision for me). If the MAOI door was somehow closed to me, doubtless ECT would have been in my future. Who knows, maybe someday it will be again. Time can only tell.
> Hi everyone.
> After suffering depression for over ten years with poor response to medication, I am considering ECT. I have read many postings by people who have had bad memory problems as a result of ECT. Has anyone out there had only minor, transient memory difficulties like the literature says you should expect? Or is the reality grim?
> I really appreciate your experiences.
>
> Thrud
>
poster:Adam
thread:58232
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010327/msgs/58300.html