Posted by blueberry on November 8, 2006, at 22:36:52
ECT electroconvulsive therapy has been amazing for me. For 30 years I've had this awful pattern of getting varying benefit from drugs for a little while and it never is great and it never lasts. ECT has worked better than anything. People now say I am more alive, more active, more confident, more engaged, and more happy than they have ever known me to me. I truly feel all of those things.
The primary side effect amnesia is a cruel trade-off, but I will offer a way to minimize it. They did not warn me about it so it was absolutely terrifying when it happened. I had no recollection, for example, of going with a friend to pick up some firewood just a week earlier. I did not recognize the name of a person I had hired and trained a few weeks earlier. The memory loss involved huge events as well as some low level fogginess of other things. The good thing was that it only involved things right around the time of treatment, not everything, and not other times of my life. It can be controlled.
The loss of ability to have sex kicked in at about week 4 of treatment. The ability to have sex again returned 8 days after the last treatment, and sex actually was more powerful than ever.
The treatment they gave me was Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings for 4 weeks, then Monday and Friday mornings for 2 weeks, and then reassess after that. In my opinion, that is too much. Amnesia can be controlled, sexual problems can be avoided, and effectiveness retained, by modifying the schedule. My sexual difficulties were apparently rare.
Here's a better schedule...
Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings for 1 week.
Monday and Friday mornings for 2 weeks.
Friday mornings for 4 weeks. Then reassess.
For me the reassessment has resulted in the doctor's opinion to stop treatments for a while and if needed go to once every 2 weeks, once a month, once a quarter, or whatever, but most patients stay well a long time and most never need any more.What is ECT like? For me, I would go into a nice hospital waiting room early in the morning and there were about 6 other people there. Then they take us to another room where each person gets a bed on wheels in their own draped cubicle. Then a nurse hooks up something to a vein in your arm. When it is your turn, they wheel your bed into another cubicle with gadgets and a nice doctor. Through your arm they give you anesthesia and quickly you are out. They give electrical stimulus to your head, and then wheel you back to your cubicle. You wake up pretty quickly, you feel fine, and you are ready to leave and go about your day.
When I stopped my ECT I was pissed off about it, due to the amnesia and sex. But it was about a week later it became clear to me it was because they had been too aggressive. The doctors are now seeing they were too aggressive and are going much more gently. They just misjudged my case.
ECT is amazing. Those waves of depression, those meds that work only somewhat, those meds that poop out, those suicidal thoughts, those uncomfortable feelings of being around crowds, those noninterested emotions in things...all are conquered by ECT. You can actually become more of a real alive person than you ever thought.
I wondered if maybe it works for some people and not others, kind of like drugs. They told me it works on everyone they try it on. The drawbacks...it costs about $225 each treatment and my insurance only paid half of that...and some spotty temporary amnesia around the time of treatment.
I was also on my regular 10mg prozac and 5mg zyprexa through it all and am still taking them. Over the years I have had some spotty responses to drugs, but never any that were thorough and fulfilling like ECT. Each day I ask myself "Are you manic?" But I'm not. It's just that the difference is indeed that dramatic. I just feel solidly normal for the first time in my life. And I talk a lot more than ever before (as you can see).
Now the scary part is wondering how long the normalcy lasts. The doctor tells me most people stay well forever after a series of ECT. A few require periodic treatments once in a while. If I need more, at least I know to keep them spaced far apart and not be so darned aggressive.
poster:blueberry
thread:701846
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061104/msgs/701846.html