Who here has had, or wants, electroconvulsive therapy?

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I've never had it and I don't want it, but who here has had it or wants it?


Someone here, in the old Depressives Club thread, said that she signed the consent form for it and after she got it, she was sore all over, and she forgot some things, like where to go for dinner, and she forgot that a close relative of hers had died.


When I was in a psych ward once, all the patients seemed to want ECT. There was a guy who seemed perfectly happy, but he was going for ECT. One lady who went for ECT said she lost her memory. Another lady who went for ECT said her head and face was sore all over after ECT. She had 12 applications. My friend in the mental ward asked a nurse what to do if he wanted ECT, and she of course said to ask his doctor. He said he was going to ask his doctor. He wasn't afraid of losing a year and a half of his memory like one schizophrenic guy I saw on TV did after he got ECT. He said that would make him a new person, and he would like that. The nurse and some patients said that you lose some of your memory after ECT but it comes back.



So what's your experience?


Here is something about the experience about one autistic who had ECT. I also read the other article his mother wrote about him and how psych meds made him crazy, but I don't know where that article is or the thread on here that linked to it, so I can't link you to it: http://www.ect.org/the-body-electric-ou ... /#more-791

As a last resort, a dear friend underwent ECT. The result was worse than what she was dealing with before the treatments. My heart is heavy just writing this much. She has not returned my last 2 calls

I don't feel that my current problems in life (moving to Idaho to be more independent) can be solved through ECT but rather through hard work.

Do people still do that? Zapping neurons and whatnot cannot be useful for improving brain function, can it? Did anyone ever work out a theory for what it's supposed to do and why?

I'd feel better about the ethics of setting off nuclear explosions in the atmosphere than of working on some of these things that pass for science and medicine!

I forgot to say that at the Harris County Psychiatric Center, this bad doctor named Malkina said that if the Haldol didn't work in a week she would try ECT on me, but that since I was pregnant she wouldn't do it without my consent. Implying that if I wasn't pregnant she wold do it without my consent.


I hadn't even tried that many medications.

who read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? everyone HATED electric shock therapy in that book.

ECT is scary stuff, personally. MY older brother has considered trying it for his depression but has backed away. Sometimes, one's memory is too precious.

Why are the schizophrenics getting ECT? That sounds like bad practice.

The whole philosophy of ECT is that once the brain is damaged enough, it won't have enough energy to hallucinate, or be depressed, or do something else unwanted. So, the purpose of the ECT is to deliberately damage the brain. The "cure" from the disease is merely a side-benefit to that damage.

It is kind of like saying that if you have a disease, why not just kill yourself so that you won't have that disease. Then you say that bullet is really a "cure" while the resulting death is a "side effect" of that bullet. Then you can go as far as to ask as to whether it is possible to shot a bullet into yourself in such a way that you won't die and in fact stay as healthy as you ever were, without a bit of pain, and STILL have that bullet "cure" you of Asperger or whatever you are having.

As far as the memory comming back, it won't. The situation with all your friends who underwent ECT is completely hopeless. How do I know? Simple. If their brain was not ruined enough, they would have been scheduled to go for more ECT sessions. So the fact that no more ECT sessions is scheduled for them is a living proof that doctors think that the damage that happened to their brain is irreversible.

So, if you were one of them, wouldn't you desperately want to jump around and yell "DOCTOR DOCTOR, just schedule ONE more ECT session so that I can MISS it, I am so sorry I never missed any of your sessions that you have scheduled".

My former partner of 3 years (we've seperated) has undergone ECT treament for clinical depression. She did experience short term memory loss (i.e. she remebers very little about the time periods when she had treatment); but also found it beneficial. She only elected to have ECTs as a last resort, when her meds were no longer working and she was intensely suicidal. While I did fond it furstrating at times to visit her (I oftem had to retell stories or repeat information from previous visits that she had forgotten) ultimately I was glad she chose it.

My former partner of 3 years (we've seperated) has undergone ECT treament for clinical depression. She did experience short term memory loss (i.e. she remebers very little about the time periods when she had treatment); but also found it beneficial. She only elected to have ECTs as a last resort, when her meds were no longer working and she was intensely suicidal. While I did fond it frustrating at times to visit her (I often had to retell stories or repeat information from previous visits that she had forgotten) ultimately I was glad she chose it.

I got it nearly 2 years ago because of a severe depression.
It helped me a lot, and it worked faster than medicine would (the doctors told me that it would take about 4 weeks before the medicine would work).
You get full anaesthesia (sp?) and a muscle-relaxing medicament, so it's not a Cuckoo's Nest-like kind of torture. (I must admit, though, that I've never watched Cuckoo's Nest ).
I didn't get sore all over afterwards, but I did get a headache and felt tired and dizzy. But then I took a nap in the afternoon. And it was nothing compared to the pain caused by the depression itself.
And I did lose a few things from the short-time memory, eg. a neuropsychologist had made a test on me at the hospital, and after I came home she wrote to me about making another test, but I didn't remember I had met her or done the test, not even when I saw her. That was strange, but the most important thing was that she knew what had been going on, I thought.
I didn't forget long-time memory stuff, and also remember my stay at the hospital very well.
In sum, ECT was really good to me.