[99fairies]

I have tried almost all of the meds out there. And a lot of side effects come with them, like dystonia. Now my Pdoc is suggesting ECT. Scares the crap out of me. I'm most worried about my memory.
What has your experience with it. And how long do you have to stay at the hospital?

[~Christina]

I know numerous people that have done ECT and gotten great results when push has come to shove.

A few people once they are doing well just have treatment as needed.

I think it’s a valuable treatment when medications are just causing more harm than good.

I’m sure Wild will be around soon to tell you what’s it’s really like.

I really hope you can find relief... you have been struggling for so long

[Tucson]

99fairies, I would of posted the exact same thing, word for word, that you did. Just the thought of ECT scares the crap out of me. I do not want to start having memory problems at this stage of my life. Isn’t there another technique that uses magnetism of some sort. Oh yes, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). I would look into this first.

[Daonnachd]

As I understand it, if you're close enough to the hospital to make the drive every other day for a few weeks you don't have to stay in hospital. I live two hours from the hospital so when it came time to arrange for the ECT I opted to stay in hospital for the duration of the intensive treatment phase. You get three treatments a week for three weeks then it tapers off.

It helped me a lot and is continuing to help as I go every four weeks now. The memory issue hit me most right around the three week intensive phase. Now that I'm more than two years down the road from that things are pretty good though I still can't navigate very well, something I used to excel at. I consider that a small price to pay, however.

If you want more information than this, feel free to ask.

[wildflowerchild25]

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

Possible trigger:

attempted suicide

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.

[Daonnachd]

Tucson brings up a valid point. TMS has less impact on the mind. It may be worth looking into TMS in your area. I would imagine Alberta to be a large enough city that somebody provides it.

[99fairies]

I had a friend who did TMS in the hospital and he said he had been depressed for 8 years. He told me if he was still depressed after the TMS he would kill himself. And he did.

[*Laurie*]

I have not had ECT, but if it was offered to me to help me when meds couldn't I would go for it. The reason I'm saying that is because I have heard many people say they were helped a great deal by ECT.
And I agree with Christina. You have been having such a rough go of things. It would be wonderful if ECT helped you.

[amicus_curiae]

Originally Posted by 99fairies

I have tried almost all of the meds out there. And a lot of side effects come with them, like dystonia. Now my Pdoc is suggesting ECT. Scares the crap out of me. I'm most worried about my memory.
What has your experience with it. And how long do you have to stay at the hospital?

I was already hospitalized when I had my ECT sessions. I think that you can have outpatient ECT these days?

Memory. Yeah. I have trouble remembering names of university friends and profs.

But I responded well to the treatments. I can’t say that the ECT is responsible for my current memory loss — I may just be old.