ECT has literally saved my life three times. The first time it gave me six years of stability off meds. The first time I had it I was so depressed I couldn’t eat and literally just laid in bed all day. I and was about to be sent to the state hospital (which is unpleasant, to say the least) when my doctor suggested ECT instead. I was terrified. But the actual procedure is not bad. You’re asleep for it. I had a massive headache and nausea upon waking but the next time they just gave me tramadol and zofran via IV Before the procedure and I was fine. You do have to spend the rest of the day recovering from the anesthesia though.

It’s usually done 3x per week. When I first did it I was in the hospital for six weeks but when I did it the second time I was only there for two weeks and did the rest outpatient, and the third time I did it entirely outpatient.

I did have severe memory issues the first and second times, however. BUT I had to have bilateral treatments. Those are much worse for memory. Unilateral treatments aren’t that bad for memory from what I’m told. But they didn’t work on me so I had to do bilateral. Memory issues included forgetting people’s names, forgetting how to get to places, and forgetting chunks of time. There are some things I don’t remember still, like a vacation I took with my husband. I only know I took it because I posted about it on Facebook. However for me it was a small price to pay for getting my life back.

I don’t do maintenance treatments but I know vertigo does. Hopefully vertigo will be around to talk about it too. I know still_crazy had a poor experience with it but it’s like medication. Some it works and some it doesn’t, but I think most people see an improvement.

I would absolutely do it again if I fell into a months long depression/mixed episode again.