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Re: ECT experience » blueberry

Posted by Bob on December 8, 2006, at 15:17:40

In reply to Re: ECT experience » Amadeus, posted by blueberry on December 8, 2006, at 12:21:39

> ECT. Oh man. It brings back such terrifying memories. But I'll share. Keep in mind that I believe my bad experience was due to a doctor who mismanaged my case, not to ECT itself. But the memory loss...well, I'll get to that.
>
> They say it takes 6 to 12 treatments, usually 12, at 3 per week.
>
> My first 8 weren't doing anything except making me feel very weird and maybe even worse. I did not notice much memory loss, but I did notice some overall confusion and cognitive slowing. Somewhere between treatment 8 and 12 it kicked in. I felt very well. No depression. No anxiety. Perfectly comfortable in a crowd. Interested and motivated in life. It was nice.
>
> The problem was that the doctor kept going at 3 times per week. I believe that was a mistake. As soon as a patient begins to respond I believe they should cut it back to twice a week and then once a week and then find whatever schedule it takes to maintain the goodness, which would probably vary from person to person. The only real side effect I noticed at treatment 12 was a completely dead sex life. It was gone. I was beginning to feel like something was too much. The goodness I felt didn't stop, it kept going higher, too high. I entered psychotic mania with significant agitation and restlessness. People said I had craziness in my eyes.
>
> A mere 2 days after the last treatment I ended up with 6 police officers in my house and an ambulance ride to the hospital as I had crashed into such a deep dense depression I was crying hysterically and threatening suicide. It has been a slow crawl back, on my own, since then. My doctor refused to do anything else with me except ECT.
>
> I asked where all the firewood in front of my house came from. I was told that I went and picked it up in my car. I have no recollection of that. I played guitar on stage for 3 church services. I have no recollection of that. I was pulled out of the congregation to play bass guitar when the regular bassist didn't show up. I have no recollection of that. Phone numbers. Forget it. They are all gone. My job. Forget it. I was like a new hire. No idea what to do. Even though I had been doing the job for 10 years. My new employer called me for my first day of work. I didn't even know I had applied for another job. And I could go on and on. Scary stuff. So now I find myself being trained in a new job where I have no idea how I ended up there.
>
> ECT is supposedly very effective for both depression and mania. For me it brought out the worst of both, with only a 2 day wonderful normal period. Ever since then, the meds I have taken for a long time feel completely different, lots of side effects that never existed before, and they make my depression worse. They never did that before.
>
> There is a 3 month period of my life that is completely utterly gone. No memory of it whatsoever.
>
> The procedure itself wasn't too bad. Go to the hospital. They put several of us in our own draped cubicles, hooked up IVs to our arm veins, and when it was my turn they would wheel me to the work station. The doctor would look down at me and greet me and the next thing I knew I was at home.
>
> I do not believe most cases go as bad as mine did. But it shows the potential is there for disaster.


What an amazing post, Blueberry!!! I mean, it looks like something I wrote, and then forgot. I too had ECT - a total of 21 treatments, and I too had a very, very similar experience. I am now, like usual, left with a lot of questions, and no answers. The first few treatments were not terrible, but I did feel strange. I really didn't reach that middle point you described where I felt very good, but some problems did go away. I too feel that they can be too aggressive with the frequency and number of treatments. After about 5 or 6 treatments, things began to get worse, with anxiety, hypomania, emotional lability, morning depression, and some suicidality. Since I'm no expert, I was always waiting for some breakthrough, where everything would click. Like you, I feel that it was pushed too far. I often wonder what it would have been like to stop at a maximum of maybe 5 or 6 treatments, and then to have stepped back to see how things progress. The SOP is to achieve some plateau with the treatments and then keep it there with continuing treatment - the fear being the frequency won't be enough and the condition will relapse. But I feel there is a possiblity with people like you and me (and many others) that the brain must adapt and have time to reorganize. Continuing a barrage of treatments with the more is always better theory didn't turn out well in my case. One of my personal, crackpot theories is that people who have underlying anxiety disorders are more susceptible to responding in this manner, as ECT is an extremely stimulating treatment. It's beyond me how people who have mania are treated by this method but it apparently works for many. For me, it seems, hypomania, agitation, restlessness, panic, and anxiety were all caused by the treatments, and needed to be controlled with benzos. The benzos themselves have always been a problem for me, as even the most minute dosage changes (especially reductions) can cause depression and suicidality in me. It has happened time and time again. However, when I end up in a severely anxious and panicky state like that, I don't know that there's any other option.

I still can't believe how well your case parallels mine. I too have had a very changed body, and my medicines all created effects, both intentional and unintentional, that were never present before. Mostly, I became extremely, and exquisitely senstive to meds that, before, didn't do much of anything. But, the sensitivity manifested itself in intolerance, not therapeutic results. My memory got rocked. It wasn't evident at first, but even now, 1.5 years later, there are events my friends and family relate that I have absolutely no recollection of. These events are usually form the time somewhat before, during and after the treatments: maybe +/- 1 to 2 years. Not everything, mind you, but enough to be discomforting.

I feel now, that my body is making its way back to pre-ECT days, but I dont' know if it will ever be 100%. Of course, that's hardly a goal to strive for, as I went it the treatments a desperate person. Sometimes on better days, I wonder what a single pop might do, where I can then wait and see if anything gets better, but I doubt I'd find any physician willing to engage in my experiments. That's one of the problems I see with the treatments, is that there is a stiff protocol in place, and no doctor is going to sit there and listen to what I have to say about it.

I'm sorry to hear about the crash you had into depression, as I had a similar experience after treatments stopped. I sank into a seriously scary place, and it wasn't like I could just go back and get more ECT at that point, as IMO, that was why I was where I was. Now, after a full year and a half, I'm "stabilized" somewhat with depression and anxiety, but have managed to keep the suicidal episodes at bay in recent times. I'm taking relatively low doses of Citalopram and Lithium, and don't really know what to do any longer.

 

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