Concerns about ECT and TMS

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I may have to under go ECT or TMS and I have a lot of concerns about both procedures.

Will I suffer from any discomfort from them?

How long will the recovery time take?

Can they damage my brain in any way?

Will they make me a completely different person?

Will they make me forget things I can do and will I have to relearn them?

Will they make me lose interest in the things I enjoy?

Will they make me no longer want a girlfriend?

Usually, it consists of 6-8 sessions. I wouldn’t go beyond that if I were you.

In the past, doctors did many more sessions than that and at higher settings which caused patients to have significant and permanent side effects. That’s not the case now.

You could experience memory loss, especially on the days when you have the procedure done although some experience a little more memory loss than that.

You shouldn’t have a lot of discomfort, but some people get mild headaches on ECT days.

It doesn’t take long to recover, but you’ll want to just relax the rest of the day and between sessions if they are close together in the week.

ECT does help some people. Some say that it’s like a reset that gives them a fresh perspective.

However, if I were you, I’d seriously exhaust every avenue before going this route. It’s also not going to help you with social skills.

Have you consistently taken your prescribed medications and tried many different ones and combinations?

Doctors don’t usually prescribe ECT unless that’s been the case.

I’ve taken medications for nearly a decade and a half. My brain doesn’t seem to respond to any of them and the psychiatrist who brought up ECT and TMS even told me my depression is treatment resistant.

If my brain was rebooted, I hope it won’t go back to my past self that believed God was watching me and had a “plan” for me as long as I took the world’s pain with a smile.

You have to be sedated for ECT, so you may spend the rest of treatment days recovering from that. I had mine at 6 AM and would sleep until noon once I got home. You might also have a bit of a headache on treatment days, but in my experience, it's nothing an ibuprofen or two won't take care of. Since I had ECT, I have not had to re-learn how to do anything, but my short-term memory is pretty shot and I have more trouble than I used to in learning new things. I was pretty much the same both before and after ECT, except for the memory stuff. My personality did not change and I still get just as much enjoyment out of the the things I liked before I had the treatment.

TMS does not require sedation. When I had it, I'd sometimes have a headache for the first part of the day, but it would wear off by afternoon. I will warn you that there is sometimes a period of a few days where you'll feel worse before you feel better - it happened to me, but it doesn't happen to everyone, if I remember correctly. It took a couple weeks for it to make any positive change, so don't give up hope if it doesn't seem to be helping right away. TMS does not have the risks of memory damage that ECT has, there's no reason it should affect your memory at all. After my weeks of treatment (three weeks of acute treatment, which happened every day, and three weeks of maintenance, which happened two times a week, if I remember correctly), I had less depression and more motivation. My depression didn't completely go away, but I did stop perseverating so much on the root cause (in my case, feeling like I'm worthless and nothing but a burden). Again, it did not change the core of who I am and I still have interest in and get enjoyment out of the same things. If it works the same way it did for me, I would guess that it would not completely get rid of your desire to have a girlfriend, but it might help you not dwell so much on the fact that you don't have one. It may allow you to have a more positive outlook about what could happen or to focus more on other areas of your life in the meantime, things that may bring some measure of joy to your life in the meantime.

Whatever you end up doing, I sincerely wish you luck. Big dragon hugs.

*returns dragonsanddemons hug*

I got an appointment for TMS but it won’t happen until the end of January.

I've thought about TMS quite a lot. I'm curious how it goes for you man. Being a programmer I'd be rather doomed if I went for ECT...

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