Hi toolman,

First, I would recommend checking for all known medical/nutritional issues that can cause depression. There is a partial list in post #45 of this thread

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...escaped-5.html

These issues are quite common and if you have any one of them, neither meds nor ECT is going to help. I really recommend that you watch this video



to get an overview of the possibilities.

Secondly, have you tried other non-drug interventions that are known to help depression like nutrition, exercise, meditation and brain training? There are people who report completely recovering from depression just with meditation for instance. To me, it always make sense to try these things before drugs or something like ECT. I think that many people assume that if you have a major problem then touchy feely stuff like vitamins and meditation isn't serious enough. I think that this is wrong, however. You can find some information about these in the depression success stories section, for instance.

My impression of ECT is that it is controversial with professional opinion varying wildly from "it should never be used" to "it's the best treatment when other options fail". Here's a debate for instance



Here's a proponent explaining it to laypersons

Sherwin Nuland: How electroshock therapy changed me | Talk Video | TED.com

It seems to be known that there are memory loss side effects and that, like antidepressants, it often wears off and you have to repeat.

Here's something that I saw advertised on the front the psych central site one time. It looks like a "home electroshock kit"

Depression Treatment ? Fisher Wallace

- vital