Posted by SLS on September 8, 2004, at 8:35:45
In reply to Re: cranial impact therapy for major depression » alesta, posted by Larry Hoover on September 8, 2004, at 8:06:35
> The risk of permanent brain injury is not clearly settled, and I actually had a "do not ECT" contract with my pdoc. If I was ever so bad that I could not guide my own care, this contract would come into force, and subsitute decision-makers would be legally bound to not use ECT.
>
> Anyway....
I wish I had never had ECT. Of course, that's 20/20 hindsight. If it had worked, I would feel differently, but it didn't. I still wonder how much damage it might have produced. I wonder if it has impaired my memory and ability to learn new things. I know that most of it is the depression itself, but I hate to think that I am that much worse off because of the ECT. I had 6 unilateral left followed by 8 bilateral treatments.I just read a horror story about a musician who had to learn to read music all over again after ECT. I have encountered too many of these stories described by intelligent and seemingly level-headed people not to pay attention to them. Damn.
The irony is that people who have experienced multiple drug failures are less likely to respond to ECT than those who have not. So the question remains: who exactly is the ideal candidate? I guess it is for the most urgent of emergencies, without regard to prior treatment history. However, if one has tried over 50 drug combinations to treat a depression severe enough to prevent them from functioning and caring for themselves, it is difficult to avoid thinking of ECT as an alternative. That's pretty much where I was at when I was convinced by my doctor to give it a try.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:387625
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040904/msgs/387963.html